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THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND 
CHRISTIAN BELIEF 



GEORGE P. FISHER, D.D., LL.D. 

PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY IN YALE COLLEGE 




NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1883 






Copyright, 1883, by 
CHARLES SCEIBNER'S SONS. 



JFranklin iJJrrsss : 

KAND, AVERY, AND COMPANY, 
BOSTON. 



(K 



TO 

WILLIAM FORBES FISHER 

THE SON WHO WAS MY HOUSEHOLD COMPANION 

WHILE I WAS PREPARING 

THIS VOLUME 



PREFACE, 



This volume embraces a discussion of the evidences of 
both natural and revealed religion. Prominence is given to 
topics having special interest at present from their connection 
with modern theories and difficulties. With respect to the 
first division of the work, the grounds of the belief in God, 
it hardly need be said that theists are not all agreed as to the 
method to be pursued, and as to what arguments are of most 
weight, in the defence of this fundamental truth. I can only 
say of these introductory chapters, that they are the product 
of long study and reflection. The argument of design, and 
the bearing of evolutionary doctrine on its validity, are fully 
considered. It is made clear, I believe, that no theory of 
evolution which is not pushed to the extreme of materialism 
and fatalism — dogmas which lack all scientific warrant — 
weakens the proof from final causes. In dealing with anti- 
theistic theories, the agnostic philosophy, partly from the 
show of logic and of system which it presents, partly from 
the guise of humility which it wears, — not to speak of the 
countenance given it by some naturalists of note, — seemed 
to call for particular attention. One radical question in the 
conflict with atheism is whether man himself is really a 
personal being, whether he has a moral history distinct from 



a merely natural history. If he has not, then it is idle to 
talk about theism, but equally idle to talk about the data of 
ethics. Ethics must share the fate of religion. How can 
there be serious belief in responsible action, when man is not 
free, and is not even a substantial entity ? If this question 
were disposed of, further difficulties, to be sure, would be left 
in the path of agnostic ethics. How can self-seeking breed 
benevolence, or self-sacrifice and the sense of duty spring out 
of the " struggle for existence " ? Another radical question 
is that of the reality of knowledge. Are things truly knowa- 
ble ? Or is what we call knowledge a mere phantasmagoria, 
produced we know not by what? This is the creed which 
some one has aptly formulated in the Shakspearian lines : — 

" We are such stuff 
As dreams are made of, and our little life 
Is rounded with a sleep." 

In the second division of the work the course pursued is 
different from that usually taken by writers on the Evidences 
of Revelation. A natural effect of launching an ordinary 
inquirer at once upon a critical investigation of the author- 
ship of the Gospels is to bewilder his mind among patristic 
authorities that are strange to him. I have preferred to 
follow, though with an opposite result, the general method 
adopted of late by noted writers of the sceptical schools. I 
have undertaken to show that when we take the Gospels as 
they stand, prior to researches into the origin of them, the 
miraculous element in the record is found to carry in it a 
self-verifying character. On the basis of what must be, and 
actually is, conceded, the conclusion cannot be avoided that 
the miracles occurred. This vantage-ground once fairly 



PREFACE. Vll 

gained, the matter of the authorship and date of the Gospels 
can be explored without the bias which a prejudice against 
the miraculous elements in the narrative creates against 
its apostolic origin. Then it remains to establish the truth- 
fulness of the apostolic witnesses, and, further, to vindicate 
the supernatural features of the Gospel history from the 
objection that is suggested by the stories of pagan miracles 
and by the legends of the saints. The concluding chapters, 
up to the last, contain a variety of corroborative arguments, 
and enter into topics relating to the Scriptures and the 
canon. In preparing these chapters, I have sought to direct 
the reader into lines of reflection which may serve to impress 
him with the truth contained in the remark that the strongest 
proof of Christianity is afforded by Christianity itself and by 
Christendom as an existing fact. The final chapter consid- 
ers the bearing of the natural and physical sciences upon 
the Christian faith and the authority of the Scriptures. 

It has become the fashion of a class of writers to decry 
all works having for their aim to vindicate the truth of 
Christianity : it is considered enough to say that they emanate 
from "Apologists." The design would seem to be to con- 
nect with this technical word of theology a taint carried over 
from the meaning attached to it in its ordinary use. But an 
" Apologist," in the usage of the Greek authors, is simply 
one who stands for the defence of himself or of his cause. 
When Paul began his address to the mob at Jerusalem, he 
called on them to hear his " Defence ; " that is, as the Greek 
reads, his "Apology." When Agrippa gave him leave to 
defend himself against the charges made against him, he 
"stretched forth his hand," and apologized; as it is rendered 
in the English version, "answered for himself." It might 



Vlll PREFACE. 

be convenient, but it is hardly magnanimous, for the assail- 
ants of Christianity to invite its disciples to leave the field 
wholly to them, or to endeavor to secure this result by call- 
ing names. It is quite true that the advocates of any 
opinion in which the feelings are enlisted are liable to forget 
the obligation they are under to rid themselves of every 
unscientific bias, and to carry into all their reasonings the 
spirit of candor and uprightness. But, whatever faults on this 
score have been committed by some of the defenders of the 
faith, it can scarcely be claimed that their antagonists, as a 
rule, have shown a greater exemption from these partisan 
vices. The remark is sometimes rashly thrown out, that 
defences of religious truth are of no value in convincing 
those who read them. The contrary, as regards especially 
their effect on inquiring minds not steeled against persuasion, 
is shown by experience to be the fact. Certain it is, that 
from the era of Celsus and Porphyry, to the days of Voltaire 
and Strauss, Christian believers have felt bound to meet the 
challenge of disbelief, as an apostle directs, by giving a 
reason for the hope that is in them (1 Peter, hi, 15). 

I must expect, that, among the readers who may be 
interested in the general subject of this volume, some will 
be less attracted by the sections that are concerned with the 
philosophical objections to theism, or with the critical evi- 
dence in behalf of the genuineness of the Gospels. But 
even this class, I trust, will find the major part of the book 
not altogether ill-suited to their wants. I venture to in- 
dulge the hope, that they may derive from it some aid in 
clearing up perplexities, and some new light upon the nature 
of the Christian faith and its relation to the Scriptures. 

It should be stated that a portion of this volume has been 



PREFACE. IX 

published, mostly as a connected series of articles, in the 
Princeton Review. These, however, have been much altered, 
and in some cases largely rewritten. More than half of the 
chapters have not before appeared in print in any form. 
New Haven, Aug. 8, 1883. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 

Page. 

The Two Beliefs Associated . . 1 

The Essentials of Personality 2 

The Reality of Self 2 

Self-determination 3 

Theories of Necessity and Determinism 6 

The Codsciousness of Moral Law 18 

Religion not of Empirical Origin 19 

H. Spencer on the Origin of Religion 21 

The Feelings of Dependence and of Obligation 26 

The Consciousness of God and Self-consciousness .... 28 

The Tendency to "Worship 33 

The Element of Will in Religious Faith 35 

Religious Presentiment 35 



CHAPTER H. 

THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 

The Ultimate Source of Faith in God 37 

The Intuition of the Unconditioned 38 

The Ontological Argument 39 

The Cosmological Argument 41 

The Argument of Design 42 

Order and Design 43 

Mind in Nature 44 

The Immanence of Design 47 

Use and Intention 48 

Criticisms by Kant 48 

The Atomic Theory of Chance 51 



Xll CONTENTS. 

Paoe. 

Evolution and Design 52 

Variability in Organisms . 50 

Darwin on Variability and Design 57 

Is Final Cause an a priori Principle ? 04 

The Moral Argument 07 

The Historical Argument G9 

Personality consistent with Infinity 09 

Atheism an Affront to Humanity 72 



CHAPTER III. 

TIIE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES : PANTHEISM, 

POSITIVISM, MATERIALISM, AGNOSTICISM. 

"What is Pantheism ? .... 73 

The System of Spinoza 73 

The German Ideal Pantheism 75 

Pantheism involves Necessity 77 

Positivism 78 

Materialism 79 

Relation of Consciousness to Physical States 80 

The Mind and the Brain . . 83 

Spencer's Agnostic System . . . .85 

The Question of the Reality of Knowledge 95 

Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Beid, Kant 9G 

Hamilton and Mansel 98 

J. S. Mill and H. Spencer 100 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE POSSIBILITY AND THE FUNCTION OP MIRACLES, WITH 
A REVIEW OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S COMMENTS ON HUME. 

Natural and Supernatural Revelation 103 

Christianity and the Light of Nature 104 

Christianity an Historical Religion 105 

Christianity not an Afterthought of God 107 

Miracles a Constituent of Revelation 107 

The Relation of Miracles to Natural Law 108 

Hume's Argument 109 

Huxley's Modification of Hume's Position Ill 

The " Order of Nature " 115 

The Relation of Miracles to Internal Evidence .... 110 

Indispensable Need of Miracles 118 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER V. 

CHRIST'S CONSCIOUSNESS OF A SUPERNATURAL CALLING 
VERIFIED BY HIS SINLESS CHARACTER. 

Page. 

Proofs of Christianity outside of the Scriptures .... 121 

The Claims made by Jesus 124 

Hypothesis of Mental Aberration 126 

No Parallel in other Religious Founders 128 

The Sobriety of Jesus 132 

The Sinlessness of Jesus 134 

No Consciousness of Evil in Him 137 

The Ordeal through which He went 142 

Miraculous Aspect of his Sinless Character 145 



CHAPTER VI. 

PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST INDEPENDENTLY OF 
SPECIAL INQUIRY INTO THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE GOS- 
PELS. 

The Apostles professed to work Miracles 148 

Injunctions not to report the Miracles 151 

Excessive Esteem of Miracles forbidden 153 

Teaching that is inseparable from Miracles 155 

No Miracles ascribed to John the Baptist 161 

No Miracles of Jesus prior to his Baptism 162 

The Persistence of the Apostles in their Faith 162 

The Mythical Theory of Strauss 163 

The Miracles are Links in the Nexus of Events .... 164 

The Resurrection of Jesus 166 

The " Vision-Theory " 168 

Hallucination disproved 170 

Keim's Admission of the Miracle 173 

Concessions of the Ablest Disbelievers 175 

Renan's Idea as to the Miracles 177 



CHAPTER Vn. 

THE GOSPELS A FAITHFUL RECORD OF THE TESTIMONY 
GIVEN BY THE APOSTLES. 

The Reception of the Gospels in the Second Century . . . 182 

The Value of the Testimony of Irenams 185 

Froude on the Testimony of Irenaeus 187 

Justin Martyr's Testimony 188 

References to the Gospels in Justin 190 



XIV 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 

His "Memoirs" were tho Canonical Gospels 202 

Early Non-canonical "Writings 205 

Apocryphal Gospels 206 

Testimony from the Gnostics 207 

Celsus 209 

Papias 210 

Marcion a Witness to Luke's Gospel 214 

The Tubingen Premise untenable 215 

Internal Proof of tho Early Date of the Synoptists . . . 216 

Origin of the Synoptical Gospels 217 

The Integrity of the Gospels 219 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 

It was one of the " Homologoumena " 221 

The Modern Attack by the Tubingen School 225 

The Testimony of Irenams 22G 

John's Residence at Ephesus 227 

Patristic Testimonies to this Gospel 230 

The Internal Evidence 235 

The Apocalypse and the. Fourth Gospel 237 

The Fourth Gospel and Philo 238 

The Author a Palestinian Jew 241 

Relation of the Fourth Gospel to the Synoptists .... 242 

Discourses of Christ in the Fourth Gospel 247 

Alleged Dualism in the Fourth Gospel 255 

View taken of Miracles 257 

Indirect Proofs of Personal Recollection 258 

Not a Pseudonymous Writing 259 

Disclosure of the Author's Personal Traits 261 

CHAPTER IX. 



THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF THE APOSTLES' TESTIMONY AS 
PRESENTED BY THE EVANGELISTS. 

The Apostles regarded by themselves as Witnesses .... 267 

Always-conscious of being Disciples 269 

Relate Instances of their own Weakness 270 

Relate their Serious Faults and Sins 272 

Describe the Human Infirmities of Jesus 273 

Submit to Suffering and Death 274 

Not Victims of Self-delusion 276 

The Gospels not moulded by Doctrinal Bias 277 

The Gospel Narratives not Mythical 278 

The Life of Jesus prior to his Ministry 279 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE MIRACLES OF THE GOSPEL IN CONTRAST WITH HEA- 
THEN AND ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 

Page. 

The Gospel Miracles are to attest Revelation 281 

They are wrought in Opposition to Prevailing Beliefs . . . 283 

Ahsence of Motives to Fraud 284 

Ecclesiastical Miracles explained by Natural Causes . . . 285 
Incompetence of Witnesses to Ecclesiastical Miracles . . . 286 

Gospel Miracles not Tentative 288 

Grotesque Character of Ecclesiastical Miracles 289 

Possibility of Post-apostolic Miracles 291 

Alleged Miracles in the Early Church .292 

Miracles reported by Augustine 29S 

The Biographies of St. Francis 30G 

Sort of Miracles ascribed to St. Francis 302 

The Truthfulness of the Apostles .304 



CHAPTER XL 

THE ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY FROM THE CONVERSION 
OF SAUL OF TARSUS, WITH AN EXAMINATION OF RENAN'S 
THEORY OF THAT EVENT. 

Personal Characteristics of Paul 306 

Naturalistic Explanation of his Conversion 807 

None of the Antecedents of Hallucination 309 

His Conversion not a " Vision " 310 

The Moral and Spiritual Change in him 311 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY FROM PROPHECY, WITH 
COMMENTS ON THE THEORY OF KUENEN. 

The Main Design of Prophecy 314 

Characteristics of the Prophet 316 

The Predictive Element in Prophecy 317 

The Relation of Prediction to Chronology 320 

Messianic Prophecy 321 

Particular Predictions 325 

Dr. Kuenen's Theory 326 

True Prophets and " False Prophets " 329 

Criteria of the True Prophet 332 

Deistic Spirit of Dr. Kuenen's Theory 3. n >2 

Prophecies in the New Testament 334 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY FROM ITS ADAPTEDNESS 
TO THE NECESSITIES OF HUMAN NATURE. 

Rage. 

Practical Character of Christianity 336 

The Conscious Need of God 337 

The Consciousness of Sin and Guilt 340 

The Miseries of Life 343 

Recognition in the Bihle of the Facts of Life 344 

Reconciliation to God 345 

The Life of Faith 347 

The Testimony of Experience 348 



CHAPTER XEV. 

THE ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY FROM THE CHARACTER 
OF THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE. 

Christianity a System 349 

Relation of Reason to the Gospel 351 

The Pure Theism of Christianity 352 

The Christian Doctrine of Providence 354 

The Christian Doctrine of Man 355 

The Christian Doctrine of Sin 356 

The Christian Doctrine of Salvation 358 

The Incarnation and Atonement 360 

The Influence of the Spirit of God 361 

The Theodicy 361 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY FROM CHRISTENDOM AS 
AN EFFECT OF CHRIST'S AGENCY. 

The Progress of Christianity 367 

Character of its Influence 368 

New Ideal of Man and of Society 369 

Effect of Christianity on the Family 372 

Christianity and the State 373 

Christianity and Liberty 374 

Christianity and Charity 379 

Christianity and Slavery 384 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XVI. * 

THE ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY FROM A COMPARISON 
OF IT WITH OTHER RELIGION'S. 

Page. 

Character of Heathen Eeligions 388 

Peculiarity of the Christian Religion 390 

Confucianism 391 

Buddhism 392 

The Religion of Egypt 392 

The Religion of the Greeks 393 

Mohammedanism 393 

Polytheism and Monotheism 394 

Christianity fitted to be Universal 401 

Hebrew and Christian Monotheism 402 



CHAPTER XVH. 

THE RELATION OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM TO THE CHRISTIAN 
FAITH. 

The Practical Influence of the Bible 407 

The Place for Criticism 408 

Revelation is through Redemption 410 

Revelation is Historical . 411 

Revelation precedes Scripture 414 

The Old-Testament Literature 417 

The Authority of Christ and the Apostles 423 



CHAPTER XVIH. 

1EIE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT IN ITS RELATION TO 
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 

Significance of "Canon" 427 

The Need of Historical Inquiry 428 

Gradual Formation of the Canon 428 

The Syrian Canon 430 

The Old-Latin Version 430 

The Muratorian Canon 431 

Irenreus, Tertullian, Clement, Origen 432 

Authority of Apostolic Fathers 433 

Eusebius on the Canon 435 

Jerome and Augustine 436 

Luther on the Books of the New Testament 437 

Calvin and Tyndale . • 438 

The Disputed Books . . .440 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE CONGRUITY OF THE NATURAL AND PHYSICAL SCI- 
ENCES WITH THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 

Tage. 

Alleged Hostility of Christianity to Science 445 

Persecution of Scientific Men 447 

The Case of Galileo 448 

Opposition to Geology and to other Sciences 450 

Causes of Intolerance toward Science 452 

Wrong Position taken by Theologians 455 

The School of Buckle 457 

The Historical Theory of Draper 458 

Arabic and Christian Science 4G0 

Christianity has promoted Science 4G2 

Distinction of Science and Philosophy 467 

Views of Nature in the Old Testament 469 

The Unity of Nature recognized 470 

The Reality of Second Causes recognized 471 

Nature viewed as a System 471 

The Narrative of the Creation in Genesis 473 

The Bible and Evolution 478 

The Idea of Creation 479 

The Fact of Death 479 

The Transfiguration of Nature . 481 

The Greatness and the Littleness of Man 482 



THE GROUNDS OF THBISTIC AND 
CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 



THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND 
CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE PERSONALITY OP GOD AND OP MAN. 

Theism signifies not only that there is a ground or 
cause of all things, — so much every one who makes an 
attempt to account for himself and for the world around 
him admits, — but also that the Cause of all things is a 
Personal Being, of whom an image is presented in the 
human mind. This image falls short of being adequate, 
only as it involves limits, — limits, however, which 
belong not to intelligence in itself, but simply to in- 
telligence in its finite form. 

Belief in the personality of man, and belief in the 
personality of God, stand or fall together. A glance 
at the history of religion would suggest that these two 
beliefs are for some reason inseparable. Where faith in 
the personality of God is weak, or is altogether wanting, 
as in the case of the pantheistic religions of the East, 
the perception which men have of their own personality 
is found to be in an equal degree indistinct. The feel- 
ing of individuality is dormant. The soul indolently 
ascribes to itself a merely phenomenal being. It con- 
ceives of itself as appearing for a moment, like a wuve- 

l 



2 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

let on the ocean, to vanish again in the all-ingulfing 
essence whence it emerged. Recent philosophical theo- 
ries which substitute matter, or an " Unknowable," for 
the self-conscious Deity, likewise dissipate the person- 
ality of man as ordinarily conceived. If they deny that 
God is a Spirit, they deny with equal emphasis that 
man is a spirit. The pantheistic and atheistic schemes 
are in this respect consistent in their logic. Out of 
man's perception of his own personal attributes arises 
the belief in a personal God. On this fact of our own 
personality the validity of the arguments for theism 
depends. 

The essential characteristics of personality are self- 
consciousness and self-determination : that is to say, 
these are the elements common to all spiritual beings. 
Perception, whether its object be material or mental, 
involves a perceiving subject. The " cogito ergo sum " 
of Descartes is not properly an argument. I do not 
deduce my existence from the fact of my putting forth 
an act of thought. The Cartesian maxim simply denotes 
that in the act the agent is of necessity brought to light, 
or disclosed to himself. He becomes cognizant of him- 
self in the fluctuating states of thought, feeling and 
volition. This apprehension of self is intuitive. It is 
not an idea of self that emerges, not a bare phenome- 
non, as some philosophers have contended ; but the ego 
is immediately presented, and there is an inexpugnable 
conviction of its reality. Idealism, or the doctrine that 
sense-perception is a modification of the mind that is due 
exclusively to its own nature, and is elicited by no object 
exterior to itself, is less repugnant to reason than is the 
denial of the reality of the ego. Whatever may be true 
of external things, of self we have an intuitive knowl- 
edge. If I judge that there is no real table before me 



THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 3 

on which I seem to be writing, and no corporeal organs 
for seeing or touching it, I nevertheless cannot escape 
the conviction that it is I who thus judge. To talk of 
thought without a thinker, of belief without a believer, 
is to utter words void of meaning. The unity and 
enduring identity of the ego are necessarily involved in 
self-consciousness. I know myself as a single, separate 
entity. Personal identity is presupposed in every act 
of memory. Go back as far as recollection can carry us, 
it is the same self who was the subject of all the mental 
experiences which memory can recall. When I was a 
child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I 
thought as a child ; but I who utter these words am the 
same being that I was a score or threescore years ago. 
I look forward to the future, and know that it is upon 
me, and not upon another, that the consequences of my 
actions will be visited. In the endless succession of 
thoughts, feelings, choices, in all the mutations of opin- 
ion and of character, the identity of the ego abides. 
From the dawn of consciousness to my last breath, I do 
not part with myself. " If we speak of the mind as a 
series of feelings which is aware of itself as past and 
future, we are reduced to the alternative of believing 
that the mind, or ego, is something different from any 
series of feelings, or of accepting the paradox that some- 
thing which is ex hypothesi but a series of feelings can 
be aware of itself as a series." So writes Stuart Mill. 
Yet, on the basis of this astounding assumption, that 
a series can be self-conscious, he was minded to frame 
his philosophy, and was only deterred by the insur- 
mountable difficulty of supposing memory with no 
being capable of remembering. 

The second constituent element of personality is self- 
. determination. This act is likewise essential to distinct 



4 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

self-consciousness. Were there no exercise of will, were 
the mind wholly passive under all impressions from 
without, the clear consciousness of self would never be 
evoked. In truth, self in that case would have only an 
inchoate being. That I originate my voluntary actions 
in the sense that they are not the effect or necessary 
consequence of antecedents, whether in the mind or 
out of it, is a fact of consciousness. This is what is 
meant by the freedom of the will. It is a definition of 
" choice." Thoughts spring up in the mind, and suc- 
ceed one another under laws of association whose abso- 
lute control is limited only by the power we have of 
fastening the attention on one object or another within 
the horizon of consciousness. Desires reaching out to 
various forms of good spring up unbidden : they, too, 
are subject to regulation through no power inherent in 
themselves. But self-determination, as the very term 
signifies, is attended with an irresistible conviction that 
the direction of the will is self-imparted. We leave out 
of account here the nature of habit, or the tendency of 
choice once made or often repeated to perpetuate itself. 
That a moral bondage may ensue from an abuse of lib- 
erty is conceded. The mode and degree in which habit 
affects freedom is an important topic ; but it is one 
which we do not need to consider in this place. 
That the will is free — that is, both exempt from con- 
straint by causes exterior, which is fatalism, and not 
a mere spontaneity, confined to one path by a force act- 
ing from within, which is determinism — is immediately 
evident to every unsophisticated mind. We can ini- 
tiate action by an efficiency which is neither irresis- 
tibly controlled by motives, nor determined, without 
any capacity of alternative action, by a proneness in- 
herent in its nature. No truth is more definitely sane- . 



THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 5 

tioned by the common sense of mankind. Those who 
in theory reject it, continually assert it in practice. 
The languages of men would have to be reconstructed, 
the business of the world would come to a stand-still, 
if the denial of the freedom of the will were to be car- 
ried out with rigorous consistency. This freedom is not 
only attested in consciousness; it is proved by that 
ability to resist inducements brought to bear on the 
mind which we are conscious of exerting. We can 
withstand temptation to wrong by the exertion of an 
energy which consciously emanates from ourselves, and 
which we know that, the circumstances remaining the 
same, we could abstain from exerting. Motives have 
an influence, but influence is not to be confounded with 
causal efficiency. Praise and blame, and the punish- 
ments and rewards, of whatever kind, which imply 
these judgments, are plainly irrational, save on the tacit 
assumption of the autonomy of the will. Deny free- 
will, and remorse, as well as self-approbation, is de- 
prived of an essential ingredient. It is then impossible 
to distinguish remorse from regret. Ill-desert becomes 
a fiction. This is not to argue against the necessarian 
doctrine, merely on the ground of its bad tendencies. 
It is true that the debasement of the individual, and 
the wreck of social order, would follow upon the 
unflinching adoption of the necessarian theory in the 
judgments and conduct of men. Virtue would no more 
be thought to deserve love : crime would no longer be 
felt to deserve hatred. But, independently of this 
aspect of the subject, there is, to say the least, a strong 
presumption against the truth of a theorem in philoso- 
phy that clashes with the common sense and moral 
sentiments of the race. The awe-inspiring sense of 
responsibility, the sting of remorse, emotions of moral 



6 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

condemnation and moral approval, ought not to be 
treated as deceptive, unless they can be demonstrated 
to be so. Here are phenomena which no metaphysical 
scheme can afford to ignore. Surely a theory can 
never look for general acceptance which is obliged to 
misinterpret or explain away these familiar facts of 
human nature. 

How shall the feeling that we are free be accounted 
for if it be contrary to the fact? Let us glance at 
what famous necessarians have to say^ in answer to this 
inquiry. First, let us hear one of the foremost repre- 
sentatives of this school. His solution is one that has 
often been repeated. " Men believe themselves to be 
free," says Spinoza, " entirely from this, that, though 
conscious of their acts, they are ignorant of the causes 
by which their acts are determined. The idea of free- 
dom, therefore, comes of men not knowing the cause of 
their acts." 1 This is a bare assertion, confidently made, 
but absolutely without proof. It surely is not a self- 
evident truth that our belief in freedom arises in this 
manner. Further: when we make the motives pre- 
ceding any particular act of choice the object of deliber- 
ate attention, the sense of freedom is not in the least 
weakened. The motives are distinctly seen ; yet the 
consciousness of liberty, or of a pluripotential power, 
remains in full vigor. Moreover, choice is not the re- 
sultant of motives, as in a case of the composition of 
forces. One motive is followed, and its rival rejected. 
Hume has another explanation of what he considers 
the delusive feeling of freedom. " Our idea," he says, 
"of necessity and causation arises entirely from the 
uniformity observable in the operations of nature, where 
similar objects are constantly conjoined together, and 
1 Ethics, P. ii. prop. xxxv. 



THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 7 

the mind is determined by custom to infer the one from 
the appearance of the other." 1 This constant conjunc- 
tion of things is all that we know; but men have "a 
strong propensity" to believe in "something like a 
necessary connection " between the antecedent and the 
consequent. " When, again, they turn their reflections 
towards the operations of their own minds, and feel no 
such connection. of the motive and the action, they are 
thence apt to suppose that there is a difference between 
the effects which result from material force, and those 
which arise from thought and intelligence." 2 In other 
words, a double delusion is asserted. First, the mind, 
for some unexplained reason, falsely imagines a tie 
between the material antecedent and consequent, and 
then, missing such a bond between motive and choice, 
it rashly infers freedom. This solution depends on the 
theory that nothing properly called power exists. It is 
assumed that there is no power, either in motives or in 
the will. Hume's necessity, unlike that of Spinoza, is 
mere uniformity of succession, choice following motive 
with regularity, but with no nexus between the two. 

Since we are conscious of exerting energy, this 
theory, which holds to mere sequence without connec- 
tion, we know to be false. J. S. Mill, adopting an 
identical theory of causation, from which power is 
eliminated, lands in the same general conclusion, on 
this question of free-will, as that reached by Hume. 
Herbert Spencer holds that the fact " that every one is 
at liberty to do what he desires to do (supposing there 
are no external hinderances)" is the sum of our liberty. 
He states that " the dogma of free-will " is the proposi- 

1 An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, P. i. § 8 (Essaya, 
ed. Green and Grose, vol. ii. p. 07). 

2 Ibid., p. 75. 



8 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

tion " that every one is at liberty to desire or not to 
desire." That is, he confounds choice and volition with 
desire, denies the existence of an elective power distinct 
from the desires, and imputes a definition of free-will 
to the advocates of freedom which they unanimously 
repudiate. As to the feeling of freedom, Mr. Spencer 
says, " The illusion consists in supposing that at each 
moment the ego is something more than the aggregate 
of feelings and ideas, actual and nascent, which then 
exists." 1 When a man says that he determined to 
perform a certain action, his error is in supposing his 
conscious self to have been " something separate from 
the group of psychical states " constituting his " psychi- 
cal self." The " composite psychical state which ex- 
cites the action is at the same time the ego which is 
said to will the action." The soul is resolved into a 
group of psychical states due to " motor changes " ex- 
cited by an impression received from without. If there 
is no personal agent, if J is a collective noun, meaning 
a "group" of sensations, it is a waste of time to argue 
that there is no freedom. "What we call a mind," 
wrote Hume long ago, " is nothing but a heap or collec- 
tion of different perceptions, united together by certain 
relations, and supposed, though falsely, to be endowed 
with a perfect simplicity and identity." Professor 
Huxley, who quotes this passage, would make no other 
correction than to substitute an assertion of nescience 
for the positive denial. He would rather say, " that we 
know nothing more of the mind than that it is a series 
of perceptions." 2 

Before commenting on this definition of the mind, 
which robs it of its unity, it is worth while to notice 

1 Principles of Psychology, vol. i. p. 500. 

2 Huxley's Hume, p. 61. 



THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 9 

what account the advocates of necessity have to give 
of the feelings of praise and blame, tenants of the soul 
which appear to claim a right to be there, and which 
it is very hard even for speculative philosophers to dis- 
lodge. On this topic Spinoza is remarkably chary of 
explanation. "I designate as gratitude" he says, "the 
feeling we experience from the acting of another, done, 
as we imagine, to gratify us ; and aversion, the uneasy 
sense we experience when we imagine any thing done 
with a view to our disadvantage ; and, whilst we praise 
the former, we are disposed to blame the latter." 1 
What does Spinoza mean by the phrase " with a view 
to our advantage " or " disadvantage " ? As the acts 
done, in either case, were unavoidable on the part of the 
doer, — as much so as the circulation of blood in his 
veins, — it is impossible to see any reasonableness in 
praise or blame, thankfulness or resentment. Why 
should we resent the blow of an assassin more than the 
kick of a horse ? Why should we be any more grateful 
to a benefactor than we are to the sun for shining on 
us? If the sun were conscious of shining on us, and 
of shining on us " with a view " to warm us, in Spinoza's 
meaning of the phrase, but with not the least power to 
do otherwise, how would that consciousness found a 
claim to our gratitude? When Spinoza proceeds to 
define " just " and " unjust," " sin " and " merit," he 
broaches a theory not dissimilar to that of Hobbes, 
that there is no natural law but the desires, that "in 
the state of nature there is nothing done that can 
properly be characterized as just or unjust," that in 
"the natural state," prior to the organization of society, 
"faults, offences, crimes, cannot be conceived." 2 As 

1 Ethics, P. iii. prop. xxix. schol. 

2 Ethics, P. iv. prop, xxxvii. schol. 2. 



10 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

for repentance, Spinoza does not hesitate to lay down 
the thesis that " repentance is not a virtue, or does not 
arise from reason ; but he who repents of any deed he 
has done is twice miserable or impotent." 1 Penitence 
is defined as " sorrow accompanying the idea of some- 
thing we believe we have done of free-will." 2 It 
mainly depends, he tells us, on education. Since free- 
will is an illusive notion, penitence must be inferred 
to be in the same degree irrational. To these immoral 
opinions the advocates of necessity are driven when 
they stand face to face with the phenomena of con- 
science. 

Mill, in seeking to vindicate the consistency of pun- 
ishment with his doctrine of determinism, maintains 
that it is right to punish ; first, as penalty tends to re- 
strain and cure an evil-doer, and secondly, as it tends to 
secure society from aggression. " It is just to punish," 
he says, "so far as it is necessary for this purpose," 
for the security of society, " exactly as it is just to put 
a wild beast to death (without unnecessary suffering) 
for the same object." 3 It will hardly be asserted by 
any one that a brute deserves punishment, in the accept- 
ed meaning of the terms. Later, Mill attempts to find 
a basis for a true responsibility ; but in doing so he vir- 
tually, though unwittingly, surrenders his necessarian 
theory. " The true doctrine of the causation of human 
actions maintains," he says, " that not only our conduct, 
but our character, is in part amenable to our will ; that 
we can, by employing the proper means, improve our 
character ; and that if our character is such, that, while 
it remains what it is, it necessitates us to do wrong, it 
will be just to apply motives which will necessitate us 

i Ethics, P. iv. prop. liv. 2 P. iii. def. 27. 

8 Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 292. 



THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 11 

to strive for its improvement, and to emancipate ourselves 
from the other necessity." l Here, while verbally hold- 
ing to his theory of the deterministic agency of motives, 
he introduces the phrases which I have put in italics, — 
phrases which carry in them to every mind the idea 
of free personal endeavor, and exclude that of deter- 
minism. " The true doctrine of necessity," says Mill, 
" while maintaining that our character is formed by our 
circumstances, asserts at the same time that our desires 
can do much to alter our circumstances." But how 
about our control over our desires ? Have we any more 
control, direct or indirect, over them than over our cir- 
cumstances ? If not, " the true doctrine of necessity " 
no more founds responsibility than does the naked 
fatalism which Mill disavows. It is not uncommon for 
necessarian writers, it may be unconsciously to them- 
selves, to cover up their theory by affirming that actions 
are the necessary fruit of a character already formed ; 
while they leave room for the supposition, that, in the 
forming of that character, the will exerted at some time 
an independent agency. But such an agency, it need 
not be said, at whatever point it is placed, is incompati- 
ble with their main doctrine. 

The standing argument for necessity, drawn out by 
Hobbes, Collins, et id omne genus, is based on the law 
of cause and effect. It is alleged, that if motives are 
not efficient in determining the will, then an event — 
namely, the particular direction of the will in a case of 
choice, or the choice of one object rather than another 
— is without a cause. This has been supposed to be an 
invincible argument. In truth, however, the event in 
question is not without a cause in the sense that would 
be true of an event wholly disconnected from an effi- 
1 Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 299. 



12 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

cient antecedent, — of a world, for example, springing 
into being without a Creator. The mind is endued 
with the power to act in either of two directions, the 
proper circumstances being present ; and, whichever way- 
it may actually move, its motion is its own, the result 
of its own power. That the mind is not subject to the 
law of causation which holds good elsewhere than in 
the sphere of intelligent, voluntary action, is the very 
thing asserted. Self-motion, initial motion, is the dis- 
tinctive attribute of spiritual agents. The prime error 
of the necessarian is in unwarrantably assuming that 
the mind in its voluntary action is subject to the same 
law which prevails in the realm of things material and 
unintelligent. This opinion is not only false, but shal- 
low. For where do we first get our idea of power or 
causal energy? Where but from the exertion of our 
own wills? If we exerted no voluntary agency, we 
should have no idea of causal efficiency. Being outside 
of the circle of our experience, causation would be 
utterly unknown. Necessarians, among whom are in- 
cluded at the present day many students of physical 
science, frequently restrict their observation to things 
without themselves, and, having formulated a law of 
causation for the objects with which they are chiefly con- 
versant, they forthwith extend it over the mind, — an 
entity toto genera different. They should remember that 
the very terms "free," "power," "energy," "cause," 
are only intelligible from the experience we have of the 
exercise of will. They are applied in some modified 
sense to things external. But we are immediately cog- 
nizant of no cause but will: and the nature of that 
cause must be learned from consciousness ; it can never 
be learned from an inspection of things heterogeneous 
to the mind, and incapable by themselves of imparting 
to it the faintest notion of power. 



THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 13 

But it is objected, that if the operations of the will 
are not governed by law, psychologic science is impos- 
sible. "Psychical changes," says Herbert Spencer, 
" either conform to law, or they do not. If they do not 
conform to law, this work, in common with all works 
on the subject, is sheer nonsense : no science of psy- 
chology is possible. If they do conform to law, there 
cannot be any such thing as free-will." 1 Were uni- 
formity found to characterize the self-determinations of 
the mind, even then necessity would not be proved. 
Suppose the will always to determine itself in strict 
conformity with reason: this would not prove con- 
straint, or disprove freedom. If it were shown, that, as 
a matter of fact, the mind always chooses in the same 
way, the antecedents being precisely the same, neither 
fatalism nor determinism would be a legitimate infer- 
ence. If it be meant, by the conformity of the will to 
law, that no man has the power to choose otherwise 
than he actually chooses; that, to take an example 
from moral conduct, no thief, or seducer, or assassin, 
was capable of any such previous exertion of will as 
would have resulted in his abstaining from the crimes 
which he has perpetrated, — then every reasonable, not 
to say righteous, person will deny the assertion. The 
alternative that a work on psychology, so far as it rests 
on a theory of fatalism, is " sheer nonsense," it is far 
better to endure than to fly in the face of common 
sense and of the conscience of the race. A book of 
ethics constructed on the assumption that the free and 
responsible nature of man is an illusive notion merits 
no higher respect than the postulate on which it is 
founded. 

Besides the argument against freedom from the 

1 Psychology, i. 503. 



14 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

alleged violation of the law of causation which it in- 
volves, there is a second objection which is frequently 
urged. We are reminded that there is an order of 
history. Events, we are told, within the sphere of vol- 
untary agency succeed each other with regularity of 
sequence. We can predict what individuals will do 
with a considerable degree of confidence, — with as 
much confidence as could be expected, considering the 
complexity of the phenomena. There is a progress of 
a community and of mankind which evinces a reign 
of law within the compass of personal action. The con- 
duct of one generation is shaped by the conduct of 
that which precedes it. 

That there is a plan in the course of human affairs, 
all believers in Providence hold. History does not 
exhibit a chaotic succession of occurrences, but a sys- 
tem, a progressive order, to be more or less clearly dis- 
cerned. The inference, however, that the wills of men 
are not free, is rashly drawn. If it be thought that we 
are confronted with two apparently antagonistic truths, 
whose point of reconciliation is beyond our ken, the 
situation would have its parallels in other branches of 
human inquiry. We should be justified in holding to 
each truth on its own grounds, since each is sufficiently 
verified, and in waiting for the solution of the problem. 
But the whole objection can be shown to rest, in great 
part, on misunderstanding of the doctrine of free-will, 
Freedom does not involve, of necessity, a wild depart- 
ure from all regularity in the actual choices of men 
under the same circumstances. That men do act in 
one way, in the presence of given circumstances, does 
not prove that they must so act. Again : those who 
propound this objection fail to discern the real points 
along the path of developing character where freedom 



THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 15 

is exercised. They often fail to perceive that there are 
habits of will which are the result of self-determination, 
— habits for which men are responsible so far as they are 
morally right or wrong, but which exist within them as 
abiding purposes or voluntary principles of conduct. 
Of a man who loves money better than any thing else, 
it may be predicted that he will seize upon any occa- 
sion that offers itself to make an advantageous bargain. 
But this love of money is a voluntary principle which 
he can curb, and, influenced by moral considerations, 
supplant by a higher motive of conduct. The fact of 
habit, voluntary habit, founded ultimately on choice, 
practically circumscribes the variableness of action, 
and contributes powerfully to the production of a cer- 
tain degree of uniformity of conduct, on which pre- 
diction as to what individuals will do is founded. But 
all prophecies in regard to the future conduct of men, 
or societies of men, are liable to fail, not merely because 
of the varied and complicated data in the case of 
human action, but because new influences, not in the 
least coercive, may set at defiance all statistical vatici- 
nations. A religious reform, like that of Wesley, gives 
rise to the alteration of the conduct of multitudes, 
changes the face of society in extensive districts, and 
upsets previous calculations as to the percentage of 
crime, for example, to be expected in the regions af- 
fected. The seat of moral freedom is deep in the radi- 
cal self-determinations by which the supreme ends of 
conduct, the motives of life in the aggregate, are fixed. 
Kant had a profound perception of this truth, although 
he erred in limiting absolutely the operations of free-will 
to the " noumenal " sphere, and in relegating all moral 
conduct, except the primal choice, to the realm of phe- 
nomenal and therefore necessary action. A theist finds 



16 THE GROUNDS OF TIIEIST1C AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

no difficulty in ascribing moral evil wholly to the will 
of the creature, and in accounting for the orderly suc- 
cession of events, or the plan of history, by the over- 
ruling agency of God, which has no need to interfere 
with human liberty, or to coerce or crush the free and 
responsible nature of man, but knows how to pilot the 
race onward, be the rocks and cross-currents where and 
what they may. 

Self-consciousness and self-determination, each involv- 
ing the other, are the essential peculiarities of mind- 
With self-determination is inseparably connected pur. 
pose. The intelligent action of the will is for an end ; 
and this preconceived end — which is last in the order 
of time, though first in thought — is termed the final 
cause. It is the goal to which the volitions dictated 
by it point and lead. So simple an act of will as the 
volition to lift a finger is for a purpose. The thought 
of the result to be effected precedes that efficient act of 
the will by which, in some inscrutable way, the requi- 
site muscular motion is produced. I purpose to send a 
letter to a friend. There is a plan present in thought, 
before it is resolved upon, or converted into an inten- 
tion, and prior to the several exertions of voluntary 
power by which it is accomplished. Guided by this 
plan, I enter my library, open a drawer, find the proper 
writing-materials, compose the letter, seal it, and de- 
spatch it. Here is a series of voluntary actions done in 
pursuance of a plan which antedated them in conscious- 
ness, and through them is realized. The movements 
of brain and muscle which take place in the course of 
the proceeding are subservient to the conscious plan 
by winch all the power employed in realizing it is 
directed. This is rational voluntary action : it is action 
for an end. In this way the whole business of human 



THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 17 

life is carried forward. All that is termed "art," in the 
broadest meaning of the word, — that is, all that is not 
included either in the products of material nature, which 
the wit and power of men can neither produce nor mod- 
ify, or in the strictly involuntary states of mind with 
their physical effects, — comes into being in the way 
described. The conduct of men in their individual 
capacity, the organization of families and states, the 
government of nations, the management of armies, the 
diversified pursuits of industry, whatever is because 
men have willed it to be, is due to self-determination 
involving design. 

. There have been philosophers to maintain that man 
is an automaton. All that he does, they have ascribed 
to a chain of causes wholly embraced within a circle of 
nervous and muscular movements. Some, finding it 
impossible to ignore consciousness, have contented them- 
selves with denying to conscious states causal agency. 
On this view it follows that the plan to take a journey, 
to build a house, or to do any thing else which presup- 
poses design, has no influence whatever upon the result. 
The same efforts would be produced if we were utterly 
unconscious of any intention to bring them to pass. 
The design, not being credited with the least influence 
or control over the instruments through which the par- 
ticular end is reached, might be subtracted without 
affecting the result. Since consciousness neither origi- 
nates nor transmits motion, and thus exerts no power, 
the effects of what we call voluntary agency would take 
place as well without it. This creed, when it is once 
clearly understood, is not likely to win many adherents. 1 

1 For a clear exposition of the consequences of denying the agency 
of mind, see Herbert, The Realistic Assumptions of Modern Science 
etc., pp. 10o seq., 128 seq. 



18 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

The scientific doctrine of the conservation of energy- 
is entirely consistent with the freedom of the will and 
with the reciprocal influence of mind and body. The 
doctrine is, that as the sum of matter remains the same, 
so is it with the sum of energy, potential or in action, 
in any body or system of bodies. Energy may be trans- 
mitted ; that is, lost in one body, it re-appears undimin- 
ished in another, or, ceasing in one form, it is exerted in 
another, and this according to definite ratios. In other 
words, there is a correlation of the physical forces. 
While this is true, there is not the slightest evidence 
that mental action is caused by the transmitting of 
energy from the physical system. Nor is there any 
proof that the mind transfers additional energy to mat- 
ter. Nor, again, is there the slightest evidence that 
mental action is correlated with physical. That mental 
action is affected by physical change is evident. That 
the mind acts upon the brain, modifying its state, exert- 
ing a directive power upon the nerve-centres, is equally 
certain. The doctrine of conservation, as its best ex- 
pounders — Clerk Maxwell, for example — have per- 
ceived, does not militate in the least against the limited 
control of the human will and the supreme control of 
the divine. 

Attending the inward assurance of freedom is the 
consciousness of moral law. While I know that I can 
do or forbear, I feel that I ought or ought not. The 
desires of human nature are various. They go forth 
to external good, which reaches the mind through the 
channel of the senses. They go out also to objects less 
tangible, as power, fame, knowledge, the esteem of 
others. But distinct from these diverse, and, it ma}' be, 
conflicting desires, a law manifests itself in conscious- 



THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 19 

ness, and lays its authoritative mandate on the will. 
The requirement of that law in the concrete may be 
differently conceived. It may often be grossly misappre- 
hended. But the feeling of obligation is an ineradicable 
element of our being. It is universal, or as nearly 
so as the perception of beauty or any other essential 
attribute of the soul. No ethical theory can dispense 
with it. It implies an ideal or end which the will is 
freely to realize. Be this end clearly or dimly discerned, 
and though it be in a great degree misconceived, its 
existence is implied in the imperative character of the 
law within. The confusion that may arise in respect 
to the contents of the law and the end to which the 
law points does not disprove the reality of either. A 
darkened and perverted conscience is still a conscience. 

All explanations of the origin of religion which refer 
it to an empirical or accidental source are superficial. 
The theory that religious beliefs spring from tradition 
fails to give any account of their origin, to say nothing 
of their chronic continuance and of the tremendous 
power which they exert among men. The notion that 
religions are the invention of shrewd statesmen and 
rulers, devised as a means of managing the populace, 
probably has no advocates at present. It belongs 
among the obsolete theories of free-thinkers in the last 
century. How could religion be made so potent an 
instrument if its roots were not deep in human nature ? 
" Timor facit deos," is another opinion. It has the 
sanction of Lucretius. Religion is supposed, on this 
view, to be due to the effect on rude minds of storms, 
convulsions of nature, and other phenomena which 
inspired terror, and were referred to supernatural 
beings. It is a shallow hypothesis, which overlooks the 



20 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

fact that impressions of this kind are fleeting. They 
alternate, also, with aspects of nature of an entirely 
different character. If nature is terrific, it is also 
gracious and bountiful. Moreover, as far back as we 
can trace the history of mythological religions, we find 
that the divinities which the mythopoeic fancy calls into 
being are of a protecting or beneficent character. A 
favorite view of a school of anthropologists at present 
is, that religion began in fetich-worship, and rose by 
degrees through the worship of animals to a conception 
of loftier deities conceived of as clothed in human form. 
Against this speculation lies the fact, that the earliest 
mythological deities which history brings to our notice 
were heavenly beings whose loftiness impressed the 
mind with awe. Even where fetich-worship exists, it 
is not the material object itself which is the god. 
Rather is it true that the stick or stone is considered 
the vehicle or embodiment of divine agencies acting 
through it. "The external objects of nature never 
appear to the childish fantasy as mere things of sense, 
but always as animated beings, which, therefore, in 
some way or other, include in themselves a spirit." 1 
The doctrine that religion begins in a worship of ances- 
tors, not to dwell on other objections to it, does not 
correspond with the facts of history ; since divinities in 
human shape were not the earliest objects of heathen 
worship. The earliest supreme divinity of the Indo- 
European race was the shining heaven, which was 
clothed with the attributes of personality. The same 
answer avails against the supposition that religion has 
its origin in dreams, wherein the images of the dead are 
presented as if alive. Influences of this sort have had 
some effect, during the long history of polytheism, in 

1 Pfleiderer, Religionsphilosophie, p. 319. 



THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 21 

determining the particular shape which mythologies 
have assumed. As an explanation of the origin of 
religion itself, and of its hold on mankind, they are 
miserably insufficient. 

Herbert Spencer is one of the writers who make reli- 
gion spring proximately out of ancestor-worship. 1 An- 
cestor-worship itself he would explain by a dream-theory 
and a ghost-theory combined. The "primitive man," 
who is so far off as to give room for any number of 
guesses about him, mistakes his shadow for another man, 
the duplicate of himself. Whether he makes the same 
mistake about every rock and wigwam from which a 
shadow is cast, we are not told. His image seen in the 
water gives him a more definite idea of his other self. 
Echoes help still more in the same direction. Then there 
is the distinction between "the animate," or, rather, 
animals, and "the inanimate." Here Spencer rejects 
what the soundest writers on mythology all hold, that 
the personifying imagination of men, who as regards 
reflection are children, confounds the inanimate with 
the living. The lower animals, dogs and horses, do not ; 
and is man below them in knowledge ? This position of 
Spencer is characteristic of his whole theory. If man 
were on the level of the dog or the horse, if he were not 
conscious, in some degree, of will and personality, then, 
like them, he might never impute to rivers and streams 
and trees personal life. Dreams, according to Spencer, 
create the fixed belief that there is a duplicate man, or 
soul, that wanders off from the body : hence the belief 
that the dead survive'. Naturally they become objects of 
reverence. So worship begins. Epilepsy, insanity, and 
the like, confirm the notion that ghosts come and go. 
Temples were first the tombs of the dead. Fetiches 

1 The Principles of Sociology, vol. i. chap. viii. seq. 



22 THE GROUNDS OF TIIEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

were parts of their clothing. Idols were their images. 
The belief somehow arises that human beings disguise 
themselves as animals. Animal-worship is explained, in 
part, in this way, but mainly by a blunder of "the primi- 
tive man." There is a dearth of names : human beings 
are named after beasts : gradually the notion takes root 
that the animal who gave the name was the parent of 
the family. Plants with strange intoxicating qualities 
are assumed to be inhabited by ghosts. Plant-worship 
is the result. The worship of nature, the worship, for 
example, of the heavenly bodies, is the result, likewise, 
of a linguistic blunder. There is a scanty supply of 
words. Terms applied to life and motion are figuratively 
attached to natural objects. The moon is said to run 
away. These phrases are subsequently taken as literal. 
The exploded solution of Euemerus, that the gods were 
human beings, magnified in the fancy of later times, is 
brought in as auxiliary to the other imagined sources of 
religion. Thus the Pantheon is filled out. 

Mr. Spencer, in his First Principles, favored the idea 
that religion sprang out of a mistaken application of 
the causal principle to the explanation of nature and of 
man. The later theory sketched above is what he con- 
ceives that the evolution doctrine demands. He differs, 
as will be perceived, from the archaeologists who make 
religion start with fetichism. He administers a solemn 
rebuke to those evolutionists who allow, what they, like 
most scholars, feel compelled to hold, that among the 
Aryans and Semites religion cannot be traced back 
to ancestor-worship. Such evolutionists, Mr. Spencer 
gravely observes, are not loyal to their theory : they 
are heterodox. 1 The circumstance that they cannot find 
facts to sustain the theory as regards these branches of 

1 Principles of Sociology, i. 313. 



THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 23 

the human race ought not to be allowed to shake their 
faith. 

The ingenious mode in which this theory is 'wrought 
out scarcely avails to give it even plausibility. The 
transitions from point to point, especially from the lower 
to the higher types of religion, have an artificial, far- 
fetched character. The resort for evidence is not to 
history, the source whence, if anywhere, satisfactory 
evidence must be derived. The proofs are ethnographic. 
They consist of scraps of information respecting scat- 
tered tribes of savages, mostly tribes which now exist. 
In this way, isolated phenomena may, no doubt, be col- 
lected, lending a show of support to the speculation 
about shadows, dreams, and ghosts. But a generaliza- 
tion respecting savage races cannot be safely made from 
miscellaneous data of this sort What proof is there that 
"the primitive man " was a savage ? This assumption 
is made at the outset. That he was unlearned, unciv- 
ilized, is one thing. That he was a fool, that he was 
not much above the brute, is an unverified assertion. 
Degeneracy is not only a possible fact, it is a fact which 
history and observation prove to have been actual in the 
case of different peoples. Not only is Mr. Spencer's 
theory without the requisite historical proof; it is refut- 
ed by history. The worship of the objects of nature, 
as far as can be ascertained, was not preceded by the 
worship of ancestors. It is a false analogy which Mr. 
Spencer adduces from the worship of saints in the 
Church of Rome. This practice did not precede the 
worship of God : primitive Christianity did not come 
after mediaeval. 1 It is remarkable, that, in an elaborate 

1 Sir Henry Maine, who recognizes the prevalence of ancestor-wor- 
ship, remarks that the theory attached to it " has heen made to account 
for more than it will readily explain." — Dissertations on Early Law 
and Custom, vol. i. p. 69. 



24 THE GROUNDS OF TIIEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 



attempt to explain the rise of religion, Mr. Spencer 
should say nothing of the great founders whose teach- 
ing has been so potent that eras are dated from them, 
and multitudes of men, for ages, have enrolled them- 
selves among their disciples. One would think that 
Confucius, Buddha, Mohammed, with whatever of pe- 
culiar illumination each possessed, should be counted 
among the forces concerned in developing the religions 
of mankind. But the evolution doctrine, in the phase 
of it which Mr. Spencer advocates, is cut off from doing 
justice to the influence of individuals. Here, again, his- 
tory is ignored. If religion had no deeper roots than 
are given to it in Mr. Spencer's theory, it could never 
have gained, much less have maintained, its hold upon 
men. The offspring, at every step, of error and delu- 
sion, it would have been short-lived. Mr. Spencer has 
presented suggestions here and there, of value in the 
study of the origin of superstitions ; but his view as a 
whole is a signal instance of the mischievous conse- 
quences of servile adhesion to a metaphysical theory, to 
the neglect of facts, and even of the deeper principles 
of human nature. Even as an account of the rise of 
certain superstitions, his theory needs to bring in as one 
element a sense of the supernatural, a j^earning for a 
higher communion. The dog dreams. The dog may 
dream of dogs that have died, or even of deceased men ; 
but he does not worship any more than he becomes con- 
scious of having within him a soul. 

There is a wide interval between hypotheses of this 
character and the more elevated theory that religion 
arises from the perception of marks of design in nature. 
But even this falls short of being a satisfactory solu- 
tion of the problem. Not to dwell on the fact that 
the adaptations of nature impress different minds with 



THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 25 

unequal degrees of force, or on the fact that they fail 
to exhibit the infinitude and the moral attributes of 
Deity, it is evident that the phenomena of religion re- 
quire us to assume a profounder and more spiritual 
source to account for them. This must be found in 
primitive perceptions and aspirations of the human soul. 

A capital defect in many of the hypotheses broached 
to explain the origin of religion, is that they make it 
the fruit of an intellectual curiosity. It is regarded as 
being the product of an attempt to account for the 
world as it presents itself before the human intelli- 
gence. It is true that religion as a practical experi- 
ence contains an ingredient of knowledge ; yet it is 
a great mistake to regard the intellectual or scientific 
tendency as the main root of religious faith and devo- 
tion. Belief in God does not lie at the end of a path 
of inquiry of which the motive is the desire to explore 
the causes of things. It arises in the soul in a more 
spontaneous way, and in a form in which feeling plays 
a more prominent part. " Those who lay exclusive 
stress on the proof of the existence of God from the 
marks of design in the world, or from the necessity of 
supposing a first cause for all phenomena, overlook the 
fact that man learns to pray before he learns to rea- 
son; that he feels within him the consciousness of a 
Supreme Being and the instinct of worship, before he 
can argue from effects to causes, or estimate the traces 
of wisdom and benevolence scattered through the 
creation." 1 

Religion is communion with God. How is the reality 
of the object known to us ? Not as the intuitions, space 
and time, cause, etc., are known to us. These are con- 
ditioned on experience. They do not assert the exist- 
1 Mansel, The Limits of Religious Thought, etc., p. 115. 



26 THE GROUNDS OF THEIST1C AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

ence of a real object, but only that, in case it exists, ifc 
conforms to these conditions. Moreover, they describe 
the nature of reason itself, of its procedure when brought 
into contact with realities, — a procedure at first uncon- 
scious, and then generalized by reflection. The being 
of God is not an axiom of this sort. 

It is in sense-perception that external objects are 
brought directly to our knowledge. Through sensa- 
tions compared and combined by reason, we perceive 
outward things in their qualities and relations. There 
are perceptions of the spirit as well as of sense. The 
being whom we call God may, in like manner, come in 
contact with the soul. As the soul, on the basis of sen- 
sations, posits the outer world of sense, so, on the basis 
of analogous inward experiences, it posits God. The 
inward feelings, yearnings, aspirations, which are the 
ground of the spiritual perception, are not continuous, 
as in the perceptions of matter : they vary in liveli- 
ness ; they are contingent, in a remarkable degree, on 
character. Hence religious faith has not the clearness, 
the uniform and abiding character, which belongs to 
our recognition of outward things. 1 

Religion is communion with God. If we look atten- 
tively at religion in its ripe form, — as, for example, we 
find it expressing itself in the Psalms of the Old Testa- 
ment, — we shall get some help towards discerning the 
elements that compose it, and the sources within man 
out of which it springs. 

Such a study suggests that it is through the feeling 
of dependence and the feeling of obligation that the 

1 On the subject of the immediate manifestation of God to the soul, 
and the analogy of sense-perception, the reader may he referred to 
Lotze, Grundziige d. Religionsphil., p. 3, Mikrokosmos, vol. iii. chap, iv.; 
Ulrici, Gott u. die Natur, pp. 605-(>24, Gott u. der Mensch, vol. i.; 
Bowne, Studies in Theism, chap. ii. pp. 75 seq. 



THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 27 

existence of a Supreme Being in whom we live, and to 
whose law we a^e subject, is revealed to the soul, and 
that intimately connected with the recognition of this 
being is a native tendency to rest upon and hold con- 
verse with Him in whom we live, and who thus discloses 
himself to the soul. A closer psychological attention 
to these experiences in which religion takes its origin is 
requisite. This may serve to dispel the impression, if 
it exist, that there is a lack of solidity or an unscien- 
tific mysticism in these propositions pertaining to the 
foundations of religious faith. 

The psychological facts at the basis of theism are not 
less truly than forcibly stated in the following extracts 
from Sir William Hamilton : — 

" The phenomena of the material world are subject to immutable 
laws, are produced and reproduced in the same invariable succes- 
sion, and manifest only the blind force of a mechanical necessity. 

" The phenomena of man are, in part, subjected to the laws of 
the external universe. As dependent upon a bodily organization, 
as actuated by sensual propensities and animal wants, he belongs 
to matter, and in this respect he is the slave of necessity. But 
what man holds of matter does not make up his personality. They 
are his, not he. Man is not an organism : he is an intelligence 
served by organs. For in man there are tendencies — there is a 
law — which continually urge him to prove that he is more power- 
ful than the nature by which he is surrounded and penetrated. He 
is conscious to himself of faculties not comprised in the chain of 
physical necessity; his intelligence reveals prescriptive principles 
of action, absolute and universal, in the Law of Duty, and a liberty 
capable of carrying that law into effect in opposition to the solici- 
tations, the impulsions, of his material nature. . . . 

" It is only as man is a free intelligence, a moral power, that he is 
created after the image of God ; and it is only as a spwk of divinity 
glows as the life of our life in us, that we can rationally believe in 
an intelligent Creator and moral Governor of the universe. . . . 

"If in man intelligence be a free power, in so far as its liberty 
extends intelligence must be independent of necessity and matter ; 



28 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 



and a power independent of matter necessarily implies the 
ence of an immaterial subject; that is, a spirit. If, then, the 
original independence of intelligence on matter in the human con- 
stitution — in other words, if the spirituality of mind in man — 
be supposed a datum of observatiou, in this datum is also given 
both the condition and the proof of a God. . . . 

" It is evident, in the first place, that, if there be no moral world, 
there can be no moral Governor of such a world ; and, in the sec- 
ond, that we have and can have no ground on which to believe in 
the reality of a moral world, except in so far as we ourselves are 
moral agents." 1 

These statements commend themselves to reason, 
whatever doubt may attach to Hamilton's inference, 
made on the ground of analogy, that " intelligence holds 
the same relative supremacy in the universe which it 
holds in us." The origin of the belief in God, a Power 
above us intelligent and moral, needs to be more defi- 
nitely explained. 

One fact respecting consciousness is, that we cannot 
be conscious without being conscious of something. In 
opposition to the use of terms in Reid and Stewart, 
Hamilton has conclusively vindicated that view which 
includes in consciousness the object. "It is palpably 
impossible," he truly says, "that we can be conscious of 
an act without being conscious of the object to which 
that act is relative." 2 If I am conscious of perceiving 
a tree, I am conscious of the tree. If I am conscious of 
feeling a pain in the head, I am conscious of the pain. 
If I am conscious of any modification of the mind, be it 
a thought, feeling or desire, this mental object is a part 
of the conscious act. 

Another fact respecting consciousness is, that insepa- 
rable from it is a knowledge of self — the ego. Con- 
sciousness is a relation between the subject and object, 

i Metaphysics, pp. 21-23. 2 ibid., p. 14. 



THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 29 

its two constituent parts. Neither can be dropped out 
without annihilating consciousness. Mind is known 
to itself only in contrast with matter ; or, as Hamilton 
expresses this established truth of philosophy, "mind 
and matter are never known apart and by themselves, 
but always in mutual correlation and contrast." 1 This 
antithesis can never be excluded. It is present when 
the object is purely mental. "The act which affirms 
that this particular phenomenon is a modification of 
me, virtually affirms that the phenomenon is not a modi- 
fication of any thing different from me, and conse- 
quently implies a common cognizance of not-self and 
self." " The ego and non-ego are known and discrimi- 
nated in the same indivisible act of knowledge." 2 

From this constitution of the mind it follows, that it 
is impossible for man to think of himself without think- 
ing of the external world, of something outside of him- 
self. In other words, the object, material existence, 
cannot be excluded from consciousness. In every modi- 
fication of mind, in every state of thought, feeling, or 
will, it is a co-determining factor. Man may struggle 
to escape from it, but he struggles in vain. To destroy 
the external object is to destroy self-consciousness. The 
human mind can take no cognizance of itself without 
in the very act taking cognizance of matter. This rela- 
tion of self-consciousness results from the connection in 
which we necessarily stand with the material world, 
including a physical organism, and with other individ- 
uals of the same species. 3 

It is strictly true then, on a rigorous analysis, that 
the non-ego is a co-agent in giving existence to every 
mental state. Without its presence as a co-de terrain- 

1 Metaphysics, p. 157. 2 Ibid., pp. 156, 157. 

8 Midler, Lelire von d. Siinde, i. 102. 



30 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

ing factor, self-consciousness would be a bare faculty 
void of contents ; that is, would have only a potential 
being. It is an unavoidable inference, that self-con- 
sciousness is not an original, independent existence, but 
is conditioned, derived. The limitations which have 
been described are not accidental, but essential. Ima- 
gine them absent, and self-consciousness in man would 
be inconceivable. It would be as impossible as vision 
without light. Hence the principle or ground of self- 
consciousness in man is not in itself. It inheres in 
some other being. 

Is this source and ground of self-consciousness in the 
object the world without ? Is it in Nature ? This can- 
not be. " Nature cannot give that which she does not 
herself possess. She cannot give birth to that which is 
toto genere different from her. In Nature the canon 
holds good, ' Only like can produce like.' " Nature 
can take no such leap. A new beginning on a plane 
above Nature it is beyond the power of Nature to make. 
Self-consciousness can only be explained by self-con- 
sciousness as its author and source. It can have its 
ground in nothing that is itself void of consciousness. 
Only that personal Power which is exalted above Na- 
ture, the creative principle to which every new begin- 
ning is due, can account for self-consciousness in man. 
It presupposes an original, an unconditioned because 
original, self-consciousness. This spark of a divine fire 
is deposited in Nature : it is in it, but not of it. 

Thus the consciousness of God enters inseparably 
into the consciousness of self as its hidden background. 
" The descent into our inmost being is at the same time 
an ascent to God." All profound reflection in which 
the soul withdraws from the world to contemplate its 
own being brings us to God, in whom we live and move. 



THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 31 

We are conscious of God in a more intimate sense than 
we are conscious of finite things. As they themselves 
are derived, so is our knowledge of them. 

In order to know a limit as a limit, it is often said we 
must already be in some sense beyond it. " We should 
not be able," says Julius Miiller, " in the remotest de- 
gree to surmise that our personality — that in us where- 
by we are exalted, not in degree only, but in kind, above 
all other existence — is limited, were not the conscious- 
ness of the Absolute Personality originally stamped, 
however obscure and however effaced the outlines may 
often be, upon our souls." It is in the knowledge of 
the Infinite One that we know ourselves as finite. 

To self-determination, the second element of person- 
ality, like self-consciousness, a limit is also set. The 
limit is the moral law to which the will is bound, though 
not necessitated, to conform. We find this law within 
us, a rule for the regulation of the will. It is not merely 
independent of the will — this is true of the emotions 
generally — it speaks with authority. It is a voice 
of command and of prohibition. This rule man spon- 
taneously identifies with the will of Him who declares 
himself in consciousness as the Author of his being. 
The unconditional nature of the demand which we are 
conscious that the moral law makes on us, against all 
rebellious desires and passions, against our own oppos- 
ing will, can only be explained by identifying it thus 
with a higher Will from which it emanates. In self- 
consciousness God reveals his being : in conscience he 
reveals his authority and his will concerning man. 
Through this recognition of the law of conscience as 
the will of God in whom we live, morality and religion 
coalesce. 1 

1 This analysis substantially coincides with the exposition of Julius 
Miiller, Lehre v. d. Siinde, ut supra. 



32 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

There is an eloquent passage which has often been 
quoted from Jacobi. How far it is true, and how far it 
needs correction or supplement, will appear : — 

"Nature conceals God; for through her whole domain Nature 
reveals only fate, only an indissoluble chain of mere efficient causes 
without beginning and without end, excluding with equal necessity 
both providence and chance. An independent agency, a free, 
original commencement within her sphere, and proceeding from her 
powers, is absolutely impossible. . . . 

"Man reveals God; for man by his intelligence rises above 
Nature, and in virtue of this intelligence is conscious of himself as 
a power not only independent of, but opposed to, Nature, and capa- 
ble of resisting, conquering, and controlling her. As man has a 
living faith in this power, superior to Nature, which dwells in him, 
so has he a belief in God, a feeling, an experience, of his existence. 
As he does not believe in this power, so does he not believe in God : 
he sees nought in existence but nature, necessity, fate." 1 

It is true that Nature, except so far as Nature is in- 
terpreted by the light thrown upon it from our own 
conscious personal agency, " conceals God." There is 
exhibited no exercise of freedom, no morality, but only 
efficient causation. It is true that only through the 
feeling of our own personality, of an intelligence acting 
freely in ourselves, of a law of righteousness and love 
for the guidance of will, have we any notion of God, or 
the slightest comprehension of his attributes. But this 
consciousness of self, as described above, is not of itself 
"a feeling, an experience," of God's existence. It is 
the consciousness of self as dependent as well as free, 
which involves this feeling and experience. There is 
no identification of self with God : this, Jacobi does not 
mean, although his language might be construed to 
imply it. Self is distinguished from God, as from the 
world, in the same undivided act of consciousness. 

1 Werke, iii. pp. 424-426. 



THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 33 

Shall the conviction of the being of God that arises 
in the soul in connection with the feeling of depend- 
ence be regarded as the product of inference? It is 
more reasonable to say that the recognition of God, 
more or less obscure, is something involved and even 
presupposed in this feeling. 1 How can there be a sense 
of self as dependent, unless there be an underlying 
sense of a somewhat, however vaguely apprehended, 
on which we depend? The one feeling is implicated 
in the other. 

The error of many who have adhered too closely to 
Schleiermacher is in representing the feeling of depend- 
ence as wholly void of an intellectual element. Ulrici 
and some other German writers avoid this mistake by 
using the term " Gefiihls-perception" to desginate that 
state of mind in which feeling is the predominant ele- 
ment, and perception is still rudimental and obscure. 

Inseparable from the recognition of God is the ten- 
dency, which forms an essential part of the religious 
constitution of man, to commune with him. To pray 
to him for help, to lean on him for support, to worship 
him, are native and spontaneous movements of the 
human spirit. Man feels himself drawn to the Being 
who reveals himself to him in the primitive operations 
of intelligence and conscience. As man was made for 
God, there is a nisus in the direction of this union to 
his Creator. This tendency, which may take the form 
of an intense craving, may be compared to the social 
instinct with which it is akin. As man was made not 
to be alone, but to commune with other beings like 
himself, solitude would be an unnatural and almost 

1 Cf. Ulrici, Gott u. die Natur, pp. 606 seq. " The general conviction 
of a divine existence we regard as less an inference than a perception." 
— Bowne, Studies in Theism, p. 79. 



34 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

unbearable state ; and a longing for converse with other 
men is a part of his nature. In like manner, as man 
was made to commune with God, he is drawn to God 
by an inward tendency, the strength of which is derived 
from the vacuum left in the soul and the unsatisfied 
yearning consequent on an exclusion of God as the 
supreme object of love and trust. 

This suggests the remark, that to the actual realiza- 
tion of religion there must be an acknowledgment of 
God which involves an active concurrence of the will. 
The will utters its "yea" and "amen" to the attrac- 
tive power exerted by God within the soul. It gives 
consent to the relation of dependence and of obligation 
in which the soul stands to God. The refusal thus 
practically to acknowledge God is to enthrone the false 
principle of self-assertion or self-sufficiency in the soul, 
— false because it is contrary to the reality of things. 
It is a kind of self-deification. Man may refuse " to 
retain God in his knowledge." The result is, that the 
feelings out of which religion springs, and in which it 
is rationally founded, are not extirpated, but are driven 
to fasten on finite objects in the world, or on fictitious 
creations of the imagination. Hence arise the count- 
less forms of polytheism and idolatry. Hence arises, 
too, the idolatry of which the world, in the form of 
power, fame, riches, pleasure, or knowledge, is the ob- 
ject. When the proper food is wanting, the attempt is 
mad? t) appease the appetite with drugs and stimu- 
lants. 

Theology has deemed itself warranted by sound 
philosophy, as well as by the teaching of Scripture, in 
maintaining, that, but for the intrusion of moral evil 
or the practical substitution of a finite object, real or 
imaginary, for God as the supreme good, the knowledge 



THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OF MAN. 35 

of him would shine brightly in the soul, would begin 
with the dawn of intelligence, and would keep pace 
with its advancing development. The more one turns 
the eye within, and fastens his attention on the charac- 
teristic elements of his own spirit, the more clear and 
firm is found to be his belief in God. And the more 
completely the will follows the law that is written on 
the heart, the more vivid is the conviction of the reality 
of the Lawgiver, whose authority is expressed in it. 
The experience of religion carries with it a constantly 
growing sense of the reality of its object. 

But we have to look at men as they are. As a mat- 
ter of fact, "the consciousness of God" is obscure, 
latent rather than explicit, germinant rather than de- 
veloped. It waits to be evoked and illuminated by the 
manifestation of God in nature and providence, and by 
instruction. 

Writers on psychology have frequently neglected to 
give an account of presentiment, a state of consciousness 
in which feeling is predominant, and knowledge is indis- 
tinct. There are vague anticipations of truth not yet 
clearly discerned. It is possible to seek for something, 
one knows not precisely what. It is not found, else it 
would not be sought. Yet it is not utterly beyond our 
ken, else how could we seek for it ? Explorers and 
inventors may feel themselves on the threshold of great 
discoveries just before they are made. Poets, at least, 
have recognized the deep import of occult, vague feel- 
ings which almost baffle analysis. The German psy- 
chologists who have most satisfactorily handled the 
subject before us, as Lotze, Ulrici, Julius Miiller, 
Nitzsch, find in their language an expressive term to 
designate our primitive sense or apprehension of God. 
It is ahnung, of which our word " presage " is a partial 



36 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

equivalent. The apostle Paul refers to the providen- 
tial control of nations as intended to incite men "to 
seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and 
find him." 1 He is not known, but sought for. Rather 
do men feel after him, as a blind man moves about in 
quest of something, or as we grope in the dark. The 
cause of their comparative failure the same apostle 
elsewhere points out. 2 This philosophy of religion is 
conformed to the observed facts. There is that in man 
which makes him restless without God, discontented 
with every substitute for him. The subjective basis 
for religion, inherent in the very constitution of the 
soul, is the spur to the search for God, the condition 
of apprehending him when revealed (whether in nature, 
or in providence, or in Christianity), and the ultimate 
ground of certitude as to the things of faith. 

The validity of the arguments for the being of God 
has been questioned in modern times. In particular, 
objections have been made from the side of philosophy 
and natural science to the great argument of design. 
These objections we hold to be without good founda- 
tion. At the same time, neither the design argument 
nor any other is demonstrative. The actual effect of 
it depends on the activity in man of that religious 
nature, and the presence of those immediate impres- 
sions of God, which it has been the object of this 
chapter partially to unfold. 

i Acts xvii. 27. * R m. i. 21. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 

It will be clear, from the foregoing chapter, that the 
belief in God is not ultimately founded on processes of 
argument. His presence is more immediately disclosed. 
There is a native and universal belief, emerging spon- 
taneously in connection with the feeling of dependence 
and the phenomena of conscience, however obscure, 
inconstant, and perverted that faith may be. The argu- 
ments for the being of God do not originate this faith : 
they justify at the same time that they elucidate and 
define it. They are so many different points of view 
from which we contemplate the object of faith. Each 
one of them tends to show, not simply that God is, but 
what he is. They complete the conception by pointing 
out particular predicates brought to light in the mani- 
festation which God has made of himself. 

We begin with the intuition of the Unconditioned, 
the Absolute. By " the Absolute " is signified, in phi- 
losophy, that which is complete in itself, that which 
stands in no necessary relation to other beings. It 
denotes being which is independent as to its existence 
and action. A cognate idea is that of the Infinite, 
which designates being without limit. The Uncondi- 
tioned is more generic. It means freedom from all 
restriction. It is often used as synonymous with " the 
Absolute." 



38 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

We have an immediate conviction of the reality of 
the Absolute, that is, of being which is dependent upon 
no other as the condition of its existence and activity. 
When we look abroad upon the world, we find a mul- 
titude of objects, each bounded by others, each con- 
ditioned by beings outside of itself, none of them 
complete or independent. There is everywhere de- 
marcation, mutual dependence, and reciprocal action. 
Turning the eye within, we find that our own minds 
and our own mental processes are in the same way 
restricted, conditioned. The mind has a definite con- 
stitution : the act of knowledge requires an object 
as its necessary condition. The universe is a vast 
complexity of beings, neither of which is independent, 
self-originated, self-sustained. 

Inseparably connected with this perception of the rel- 
ative, the limited, the dependent, is the idea of the 
Unconditioned, the Absolute. It is the correlate of 
the finite and conditioned. Its reality is known as 
being implied in the reality of the world of finite, 
interacting, dependent existences. The Unconditioned 
is not a mere negative. It is negative in its verbal 
form, because it is antithetical to the conditioned, and 
is known through it. But the idea is positive, though 
it be incomplete ; that is to say, although we fall short 
of a complete grasp of the object. The Unconditioned, 
almost all philosophers except Positivists of an extreme 
type, admit. Metaphysicians of the school of Hamilton 
and Mansel hold, that, as a reality, it is an object of 
immediate and necessary belief, although they refuse to 
consider it an object of conceptive thought. But some 
sort of knowledge of it there must be in order to such 
a belief. The Unconditioned is not merely subjective, 
it is not a mere idea, as Kant, in the theoretical part of 



THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 39 

his philosophy alleges. He makes this idea necessary 
to the order, connection, and unity of our knowledge. 
We can ask for no surer criterion of real existence 
than this. 1 Unconditioned being is the silent presup- 
position of all our knowing. Be it observed that the 
idea of the Absolute is not that of "the sum of all 
reality," — a quantitative notion. It is not the idea of 
the Unrelated, but of that which is not necessarily 
related. It does not exclude other beings, but other 
beings only when conceived of as a necessary com- 
plement of itself, or as the product of its necessary 
activity, or as existing independently alongside of itself. 
The Absolute which is given in the intuition is one. 
It is infinite, not as comprehending in itself of necessity 
all beings, but as incapable of any conceivable augmen- 
tation of its powers. It is free from all restrictions not 
self-imposed. Any thing more respecting the Absolute, 
we cannot affirm. It might be, as far as we have gone 
now, the universal substance of Spinoza, or "the Un- 
knowable " of Spencer. For the refutation of such 
hypotheses, we depend on the cosmological and other 
arguments. 2 

The arguments for the being of God are usually 
classed as the ontological, the cosmological, the physico- 
theological or the argument of design, the moral, and 
the historical. 

I. The ontological. This makes the existence of God 
involved in the idea of him. This argument must not 
be confounded with the intuition of the Absolute which 
is evoked in conjunction with our perceptions of rela- 

1 Cf. Trendelenburg, Logische Untersuchungen, ii. 426. 

2 For instructive observations respecting tbe Absolute and the kin- 
dred ideas, see Calderwood's Philosophy of the Infinite (2d ed.); Porter, 
The Human Intellect, pp. 645 seq.; Flint, Theism, p. 264; McCosh, 
The Intuitions of the Mind, chap. iii. 



40 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

tive and dependent existence. The ontological proof 
begins and ends with the analysis of the idea. It claims 
that the existence of God is necessarily involved in a 
necessary notion. As presented by Anselm, it affirms 
that the most perfect conceivable being must be actual : 
otherwise a property — that of actuality, or objective 
being — is wanting. It appears to be a valid answer to 
this reasoning, that existence in re is not a constituent 
of a concept. How can we infer the existence of a thing 
from the definition of a word ? Given the most perfect 
being, its mode of existence is no doubt necessary. But 
from the mere idea, except on the basis of philosophical 
realism, the actuality of a corresponding entity cannot 
be concluded with demonstrative certainty. The same 
objection is applicable to the ontological argument of 
Descartes, who brings forward the analogy of a triangle, 
the idea of which involves the equality of its three 
angles to two right angles. So, it is said, the idea of 
God implies that he exists necessarily. Certainly, if 
there be a God ; but the hypothesis must first be estab- 
lished. The inference of Descartes, from the presence 
of the idea of the infinite in the human mind, that an 
infinite Author must have originated it, is rather an 
a posteriori than an a priori argument. As an argu- 
ment from effect to cause, it is not without weight. 

The argument from the idea of "the most perfect 
being," though failing in strict logic, is not without an 
evidential value. The soul does not willingly consent 
to regard so inspiring a conception as a mere thought. 
To consider it as unreal, with no counterpart in the 
realm of actual existence, is felt as a bereavement and 
a pain. The importance which eminent thinkers have 
attached to this argument has not been wholly void of 
foundation. 1 The idea of a being infinite and perfect 
See McCosh, The Intuitions of the Mind, p. 191, n. 



THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 41 

attaches itself, by a spontaneous movement of the mind, 
to that image of God which the other arguments call 
forth. 

Of more cogency is what has been called the logical 
form of the a priori proof. It is found in Anselm and 
Aquinas. It is impossible to deny that there is Truth : 
the denial would be self-contradictory. But those ideas 
and truths which are the ground-work of all our know- 
ing — the laws of our intellectual and moral constitu- 
tion — have their source without us and beyond us. 
They inhere in God. A like indirect proof has been 
thus presented by Trendelenburg. The human mind 
goes out of itself to know the world, and also, by exer- 
tions of the will, to mould and subdue it. Yet the world 
is independent of the mind that seeks thus to compre- 
hend it, and shape it to its purposes. This freedom of 
the mind implies that the world is intelligible, that there 
is thought in things. It implies that there is a common 
bond — namely, God, the Truth — between thoughts 
and things, mind and the world. Thought and thing, 
subject and object, each matched to the other, presup- 
pose an intelligible ground of both. This presupposi- 
tion is latent in all attempts to explore and comprehend, 
to bring within the domain of knowledge, and to shape 
to rational ends, the world without. 1 

II. The cosmological proof is more clear. It stands 
on a solid foundation. Finite things have not their 
origin in themselves. We trace effects back to their 
causes ; but these causes are found to be, also, effects. 
The path is endless. There is no goal. There is no 
rest or satisfaction, save in the assumption j£ being 

1 Trendelenburg, ibid., p. 430. For an interesting review of the 
a priori proofs, see Flint, Theism, Lect. ix. Dr. Flint attaches more 
validity to the Anselmic argument than I am able to discern in it. 



42 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

that is causative without being caused, or being which 
has the ground of existence in itself. If there is not 
self-existent being, or being which is causa sui, then 
cause is a phantom, forever chased, but never caught. 
It has no reality. A phenomenon — call it a — calls for 
explanation : it demands a cause. If we are told that 
its cause is b, but told at the same time that in b there 
is no fount of causal energy, so that we have precisely 
the same demand to satisfy respecting b as a, then no 
answer has been given to our first question : we are put 
off with an evasion. That question takes for granted 
the reality of aboriginal causal energy. It proceeds 
from a demand of intelligence which is illegitimate and 
irrational, unless there be a cause in the absolute sense, 

— a cause uncaused. 

Yet, in postulating a causa sui, we surpass the limits 
of experience ; for all our experience is of causes dis- 
tinct from their effects. The cosmological proof is nega- 
tive or indirect. The supposition of a First Cause is 
impressed on us by the absurdity of an endless regress, 

— an infinite series in the succession of whose limits 
no causal energy, or cause answering to the demand of 
reason, is contained. 

The intuition of cause determines the relation of the 
Absolute to the world. Are we not led farther by the 
idea of causa sui, naturally and logically to the ascrip- 
tion of personality to the First Cause ? Does not this 
idea require that will, the fountain-head of aboriginal 
activity, should be considered the prius of all exist- 
ence? This has been the conclusion of the most pro- 
found thinkers. 1 

III. The personality of God is proved by the argu- 

1 That causa sui also implies personality is shown by Julius Miiller, 
Lehre von der Siinde, b. iii. p. 1, chap. iv. 



THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 43 

ment of design, — the physico-theological argument 
The First Cause is known to be intelligent and free by 
the manifest traces of intelligent purpose in the consti 
tution of the world. 

"When we attend to the various objects of which the 
knowing faculty takes cognizance, including the human 
mind, we discover something more than the properties 
which distinguish them one from another and the causes 
which bring them into being. In this very process of 
investigation we are struck with the fact that there is 
a coincidence and co-operation of physical or efficient 
causes for the production of definite effects. These 
causes are perceived to be so constituted and disposed 
as to concur in the production of the effect, and to 
concur in such a way that the particular result follows 
of necessity. This conjunction of disparate agencies, of 
which a definite product is the necessary outcome, is 
the finality which is observed in Nature. But our 
observation extends farther: we involuntarily assume 
that this coincidence of causes is. in order that the pecul- 
iar and specific result may follow. This assumption of 
design is the result of no effort — it is not an arbitrary 
act — on our part. It is spontaneous. The conviction 
of design is brought home to us by the objects them- 
selves. We see a thought realized, and thus recognize 
in it a forethought. 

It admits of no question that the observation of order 
and adaptation in Nature, inspiring the conviction of a 
designing mind concerned in its origination, is natural 
to mankind. It has impressed the philosopher and the 
peasant alike. Socrates enforced the argument by the 
illustration of a statue, as Paley, two thousand years 
later, by the illustration of a watch. 

The distinction between order and design, in the pop- 



44 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

ular sense of the term, — meaning special adaptations, — 
is a valid and important one. Especially is this dis- 
crimination important since the advent of the modern 
theories of evolution. By order we mean the reign of 
law and the harmony of the world resulting from it. 
Both order and the relation of means to special intel- 
ligible ends imply design. They both imply intelligent 
purpose. Both order and special adaptation may and 
do co-exist, but they are distinguishable from one 
another. For example, the typical unity of animals of 
the vertebrate class, or their conformity in structure to 
a typical idea, is an example of order. The fitness of 
the foot for walking, the wing for flying, the fin for 
swimming, is an instance of special adaptation. 

What are the laws of Nature ? They are the rules 
conformably to which the forces of Nature act. We 
cannot think of them otherwise than as prescribed, as 
ordained to the end that these forces may work out 
their effects. In other words, the order of Nature is an 
arrangement of intelligence. This accounts for the joy 
that springs up in the mind on the discovery of some 
great law which gives simplicity to the seemingly com- 
plex operations of Nature. The mind recognizes some- 
thing akin to itself. It recognizes a thought of God. 
The norms according to which the knowing faculty dis- 
criminates, connects, and classifies the objects in Nature, 
imply that Nature herself has been pre-arranged accord- 
ing to the same norms, or is the product of mind. In 
conformity to the categories — time, space, quantity, 
quality, etc. — according to which the mind distin- 
guishes natural objects, and thus comprehends Nature, 
Nature is already framed. That is to say, there is mind 
expressed in Nature. It is from consciousness in our- 
selves that we derive the ideas which we find embodied 



THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 45 

in the framework of Nature, and by which it is under- 
stood and described. Unity is known from the unity 
of consciousness in the variety of its modifications; 
substance, from the intuition of self; order, from the 
harmony in the inner world of thought; cause, from 
the exertion of the will. 

Science is the discernments of the expressions of 
mind which are incorporated in Nature. A dog sees 
on a printed page only meaningless marks on a white 
ground. To us they contain and convey thoughts, and 
bring us into communion with the mind of the author. 
So it is with Nature. Take a book of astronomy. If 
the stellar world were not an intellectual system, such 
a work would be impossible. The sky itself is the 
book which the astronomer reads, and the written 
treatise is merely the transcript of the thoughts which 
he finds there. " How powerful and wise must He be," 
says Fenelon, " who makes worlds as innumerable as 
the grains of sand that cover the seashore, and who 
leads all these wandering worlds without difficulty 
during so many ages, as a shepherd leads his flock ! " 
Science is the reflex of mind in Nature. 1 Nature is 
a complex whole, made up of interacting powers and 
activities which constitute together one complete system. 
Order reigns in Nature, and universal harmony. Hence 

1 This truth is presented with irmch force and eloquence by one of 
the most eminent mathematicians of the age, — the late Professor B. 
Peirce, in his Ideality in the Physical Sciences (1883). He speaks 
oC Nature as " imbued with intelligible thought" (p. 19), of "the amaz- 
ing intellectuality inwrought into the unconscious material world" 
(p. 20), in which there is " no dark corner of hopeless obscurity " (p. 21), 
of the " dominion of intellectual order everywhere found " (p. 25), 
" of the vast intellectual conceptions in Nature " (p. 2G). To ignore 
God as r.he author of Nature as well as of mind is as absurd as to 
make " the anthem the offspring of unconscious sound " (p. 32). " If 
the common origin of mind and matter is conceded to reside in the 
decree of a Creator, the identity ceases to be a mystery " (p. 31). 



46 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

all these separate powers must be so fashioned and 
guided that they shall conspire to sustain and promote, 
and not to convulse and subvert, the complex whole. It 
follows that the existence and preservation of the sys- 
tem are an end for the realizing of which the particular 
forces and their special activities are the means. More- 
over, if all the forces of Nature are so interlinked in a 
system, that any single occurrence involves the more 
immediate or the more remote participation of all, we 
must infer that all are made and controlled with refer- 
ence to it ; that is, the forces of Nature exhibit design. 

There is no province of Nature where order, and 
thus design, are not discoverable. But the most strik- 
ing evidences of controlling intelligence are found in 
the organic kingdom. Here order and special adapta- 
tion meet together. Naturalists, whatever may be 
their theory as to final causes, cannot describe plants 
and animals without constantly using language which 
implies an intention as revealed in their structure. 
The " provisions " of Nature, the " purpose of an 
organ," the possession of a part " in order that " some- 
thing may be done or averted, — such phraseolog} r is not 
only common, it is almost unavoidable. No writer uses 
it more abundantly than Mr. Darwin. It corresponds 
to the impression which is naturally and irresistibly 
made upon the mind. 

It is when we consider the human body in its rela- 
tion to the mind, that the most vivid perception of 
design is experienced. To one who does not hold that 
the mind is itself the product of organization, and 
every purpose which the mind forms a phenomenon of 
matter, — a phenomenon as necessary in its origin as 
the motion of the lungs, — that is, to every one who is 
conscious of being able to begin action, the adaptation 









THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 47 

of his bodily organs to the service of his intelligence is 
obvious and striking. The hand bears marks of being 
designed, more clearly than the tools which the hand 
makes. The eye displays contrivance, more impres- 
sively than all the optical instruments which man can 
contrive. I distinguish myself from the eye, and from 
my body of which the eye is a part ; and I know that 
the eye was made for me to see with. When we con- 
sider the adaptation of the sexes to one another, the 
physical and moral arrangements of Nature which 
result in the family, in the production and rearing of 
offspring; and when we contemplate the relation of 
the family to the state, and the relation of the family 
and the state to the kingdom of God, where the ideas 
and affections developed in the family and in the state 
find a broader scope and higher objects to rest upon, — 
the evidences of a preconceived plan are overwhelming. 
It is objected that in Nature design is immanent, the 
efficient cause reaches its ends without going out of 
itself; whereas in all the works of man the efficient 
cause • is distinct and separate from the object in which 
the end is realized. In Nature the efficient cause 
operates from within, and appears to work out the 
end without conscious purpose. The forces of Nature 
appear to achieve the order and variety and beauty 
which we behold, of themselves, through no external 
compulsion, and at the same time without conscious- 
ness. In an organism every part is both means and 
end : the structure grows up, repairs itself, and per- 
petuates itself by reproduction ; but the active force 
by which these ends are fulfilled is not in the least 
aware of what it is doing. Thus, it is contended, the 
analogy fails between the artificial products of human 
ingenuity and the works of Nature. These works 



48 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

arise, we are told, through forces which operate in the 
manner of instinct. It is a blind intelligence, it is said, 
performing works resembling those which man does, 
often less perfectly, with conscious design. But for 
the very reason that instinct is blind, incapable of fore- 
seeing the end which it is to attain, and of choosing the 
appropriate means, we are obliged to connect it with a 
conscious wisdom of which it is the instrument. A 
" blind intelligence " is a contradiction in terms. When 
we see a purpose carried out, we are impelled to trace 
the operation to an intelligent Author, whether the end 
is attained by an agency acting from within or from 
without. The accurate mathematics of the planetary 
bodies, marking out for themselves their orbits, the 
unerring path of the birds, the geometry of the bee, the 
seed-corn sending upward the blossoming and fruit- 
bearing stalk, excite a wonder the secret of which is 
the insufficiency of the operative cause to effect these 
marvels of intelligence and foresight. 

The popular objection to the argument of design 
imputes to it the fallacy of confounding use with fore- 
thought or intention. Is not the eye for seeing ? Yes, it 
is answered, that is its use or function ; but this is not 
to say that it was planned for this use or function, for, 
when you affirm design, you go back to a mental act. 
The rejoinder is, that we are driven back to such a 
mental act, and thus to a designing intelligence. The 
relation of the constitution of the organ to the use 
irresistibly suggests the inference. The inference is 
no arbitrary fancy. Design is brought home to us, just 
as the relation of the structure of a telescope to its 
use would compel us of itself to attribute it to a con- 
triving intelligence. 

Kant has two criticisms on the argument of design. 



THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 49 

The first is, that it can go no farther than to prove an 
architect or framer of the world, not a creator of mat- 
ter. But the special function of the argument is to 
prove that the First Cause is intelligent. The conclu- 
sion that the author of the wonderful order which is 
wrought in and through matter is also the author of 
matter itself, appears, however, probable. For how can 
the properties of matter through which it is adapted 
to the use of being moulded by intelligence, be separat- 
ed from matter itself? What is matter divorced from 
its properties ? We cannot understand creation, because 
we cannot create. The nearest approach to creative 
activity is in the production of good and evil by our 
own voluntary action. Row God creates is a mystery 
which cannot be fathomed, at least until we know 
better what matter is. There are philosophers of high 
repute who favor the Berkeleian hypothesis, which dis- 
penses with a substratum of matter, and ascribes the 
percepts of sense to the will of the Almighty, exerted 
according to a uniform rule. Whatever matter may 
be in its essence, we know that there is an ultimate, 
unconditioned Cause. We know that this Cause is 
intelligent and free. To suppose that by the side of 
the eternal Spirit there is another eternal and self- 
existent being, the raw matter of the world, " without 
form, and void," involves the absurdity of two Abso- 
lutes limiting one another. Moreover, scientific study 
favors the view that matter itself is an effect. If we 
accept the hypothesis of molecules as the ultimate 
forms of matter, Sir John Herschel finds in each of 
these, as related to the others "the essential quality 
of a manufactured article." Our intuition of the Infi- 
nite and Absolute is not contradicted, but rather cor- 
roborated, by the evidence which science affords of a 
supramundane though immanent Deity. 



50 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

The second difficulty raised by Kant is, that a strictly 
infinite being cannot be inferred from a finite creation, 
however extensive or wondrous. All that can be in- 
ferred with certainty is an inconceivably vast power 
and wisdom. The validity of this objection may be 
conceded. The infinitude of the attributes of God is 
involved in the intuition of an unconditioned being, — 
the being glimpses of whose attributes are disclosed to 
us in the order of the finite world. 

These objections of Kant are in the Critique of Pure 
Reason. Elsewhere he brings forward an additional 
consideration. Admitting that the idea of design is 
essential to our comprehension of the world, he raises 
the point that it may be subjective only, regulative of 
our perceptions, but not objective or "constitutive." 
Not regarding the idea of design as a priori, like the 
idea of causation, he inquires whether it may not be a 
mere supposition, a working hypothesis, which a deeper 
penetration of Nature might dispense with. The an- 
swer to this doubt is, that the thought of design is not 
artificially originated by ourselves : it is a conviction 
which the objects of Nature themselves "imperiously"- 
suggest and bring home to us. As Janet has pointed 
out, there are two classes of hypotheses. Of one class 
it is true that they are regarded as corresponding with 
the true nature of things ; of the other, that they are 
only a convenient means for the mind to conceive them. 
The question is, whether the hypothesis is warranted by 
the facts, and is perceived veritably to represent Nature. 
In the proportion in which it does this, its probability 
grows until it becomes a truth of science. Of this 
character is the hypothesis of design. 

We infer the existence of an intelligent Deity, as we 
infer the existence of intelligence in our fellow-men, 



THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 51 

and on grounds equally cogent. My senses take no 
cognizance of the minds of other men. I perceive 
certain motions of their bodies. I hear certain sounds 
emanating from their lips. What right have I, from 
these purely physical phenomena, to infer the presence 
of an intelligence behind them ? What proof is there 
of the consciousness in the friend at my side? How 
can I be assured that he is not a mere automaton, 
totally unconscious of its own movements? The war- 
rant for the contrary inference lies in the fact, that 
being possessed of consciousness, and acquainted with 
its effects in myself, I regard like effects as evidence 
of a like principle in others. But in this inference I 
transcend the limits of sense and physical experiment. 
In truth, in admitting the reality of consciousness in 
myself, I take a step which no physical observation can 
justify. Were the brain opened to view, no microscope, 
were its power infinitely augmented, could discover the 
least trace of it. 

The alternative of design is chance. The Epicurean 
theory, as expounded by Lucretius, made the world 
the result of the fortuitous concourse of atoms, which, 
in their motions and concussions, at length fell into the 
orderly forms in which they abide. The postulate of 
this theory is the infinite duration of the world. But 
" no time can really exhaust chance : chance is as infi- 
nite as time." And the postulate of infinite time is 
excluded if the nebular hypothesis is well founded. 
The time in which the primitive material has consumed 
in arriving at the present system is finite. It is some- 
times said that the order of the universe is possible, 
because it actually is. The question, however, is not 
whether it is possible, but whether it is possible with- 
out an intelligent Cause. The Strasbourg Minster is 



52 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 



possible, but not possible without an architect and 
builder. 

If we admit the Lucretian hypothesis of the origin of 
the material universe, as we behold it, from the combi- 
nation of atoms without special acts of creation, we do 
not get rid of the proof of design. Why did the multi- 
tudinous atoms fail to combine in an orderly and stable 
way up to the moment when the existing cosmos was 
reached? Manifestly they must have been, in their 
constitution and mutual relations, adapted to the pres- 
ent structure of things, and to no other. The present 
system was anticipated in the very make of the atoms, 
the constituent elements of the universe. The atoms, 
then, present the same evidences of design which the 
outcome of their revolutions presents. We might be 
at a loss to explain why the Author of Nature chose 
this circuitous way, through abortive experiments, to 
the goal ; but that the goal was in view from the begin- 
ning is evident. 

The doctrine of evolution (unless materialism is con- 
nected with it) is not inconsistent with the argument 
from design. Evolution is antithetical to special acts 
of creation, and professes to explain the origin of the 
different species of animals and plants by the agency of 
second causes. It is held that they are descendants of a 
few progenitors with which they stand in a genetic con- 
nection. Some would extend the theory, and make life 
itself the natural product of inorganic forms, — a propo- 
sition for which, however, there is no scientific proof. 
But the evolution theory, even in its broadest form, — in 
which the network of genetic causation is stretched 
over all forms, whether living or lifeless, as far back as a 
nebulous vapor, — gives, and pretends to give, no expla- 
nation, either of the origin of the world as a whole, 



THE ARGUMENTS FOE, THE BEING OF GOD. 53 

or of the order and adaptations that characterize it. 
The different theories of evolution should not be con- 
founded. There is the generic doctrine of a common 
descent of animal organisms, the earliest of which may 
or may not have been created outright. This doctrine 
is held by many who do not subscribe to the theory of 
gradual or imperceptible variations as an explanation, 
at least as a complete explanation, of the origin of spe- 
cies. These prefer the hypothesis of " hetercgenetic 
generation," — origin by leaps, or the metamorphosis of 
germs. Some would not exclude from continued activ- 
ity, especially in producing the lowest species, the primi- 
tive power of organization, whatever it was, through 
which the lowest species first sprung. 1 Darwin's theory 
is that of natural selection. This hypothesis refers the 
animal kingdom to the operation of a few agencies 
acting upon one or more primitive living forms, and 
producing from them the numerous species, as well as 
varieties of species, which have existed in the past, and 
now exist, on the earth. It is obvious that these agen- 
cies are blind instrumentalities, of which it is true, in 
the first place, that the origin of each requires to be 
explained ; in the second place, that their concurrence 
requires to be accounted for ; and, in the third place, 
that neither separately considered nor taken in combi- 
nation — since they are blind, unintelligent forces — do 
they avail in the least to explain the order and adapta- 
tion of Nature which result from them. Why do living 
beings engender offspring like themselves ? Why do 
the offspring slightly vary from the parents and from 
one another? How account for the desire of food? 

1 The different forms of the evolution theory arc lucidly and instruc- 
tively considered in the excellent work of Rudolf Schinid, The Theories 
of Darwin, etc. (Chicago, 1883). 



54 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

How explain the disposition to struggle to obtain it ? 
Why is beauty preferred, leading to " sexual selection " ? 
How is it that these laws co-exist and co-operate ? We 
see that they lead, according to the Darwinian view, 
necessarily to a grand result, a system of living beings. 
They are actually means to an intelligible end. They 
appear to exist, to be ordained and established, with 
reference to it. There is a " survival of the fittest ; " 
but how were " the fittest " produced ? Natural selec- 
tion merely weeds out and destroys the products which 
are not the fittest. It produces nothing. But it works, 
in conjunction with the force described as " heredity " 
and the force described as "variability," to work out 
an order of things which plainly shows itself to have 
been preconceived. The fallacy of excluding design or 
final causes where it is possible to trace out efficient or 
instrumental causes would be astonishing if it were not 
so frequently met with. It were to be wished that all 
naturalists were as discriminating as Professor Owen, 
who says, — 

"Natural evolution by means of slow physical and organic oper- 
ations through long ages is not the less clearly recognizable as the 
act of all-adaptive mind, because we have abandoned the old error 
of supposing it to be the result of a primary, direct, and sudden 
act of creational construction. . . . The succession of species by 
continuously operating law is not necessarily a 'blind operation.' 
Such law, however discerned in the properties of natural objects, 
intimates, nevertheless, a preconceived progress. Organisms may 
be evolved in orderly manner, stage after stage, towards a foreseen 
goal, and the broad features of the course may still show the unmis- 
takable impress of divine volition." 1 

Evolution has to do with the how, and not the why, of 
phenomena: hence the evolutionist is powerless against 

1 Transactions of the Geological Society, v. 90, quoted by Mivart, 
The Genesis of Species, p. 274. 



THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 55 

the teleological argument. This is true of the theory 
of evolution in the widest stretch that has been given 
it. This consistency" of evolution with design is affirmed 
by Professor Huxley : — 

" The teleological and the mechanical views of nature are not 
necessarily mutually exclusive. On the contrary, the more purely a 
mechanist the speculator is, the more firmly does he affirm primor- 
dial nebular arrangement, of which all the phenomena of the uni- 
verse are consequences, the more completely is he thereby at the 
mercy of the teleologist, who can always defy him to disprove that 
this primordial nebular arrangement was not intended to evolve 
the phenomena of the universe." 1 

This intention is recognized in the outcome as related 
to the unconscious agencies leading to it, as well as in 
the constitution of these primordial agencies, — recog- 
nized by the same faculty of reason through which we 
are made capable of tracing phenomena to their appro- 
priate causes. 

In another place, writing in a less philosophical spirit, 
Professor Huxley, by way of comment on Paley's illus- 
tration from the watch, says : — 

" Suppose only that one had been able to show that the watch 
had not been made directly by any person, but that it was the result 
of the modification of another watch, which kept time but poorly ; 
and that this, again, had proceeded from a structure which could 
hardly be called a watch at all, seeing that it had no figures on the 
dial and the hands were rudimentary; and that, going back and 
back, in time we came at last to a revolving barrel as the 'earliest 
traceable rudiment of the whole fabric. And imagine that all 
these changes had resulted, first, from a tendency of the structure 
to vary indefinitely, and, secondly, from something in the surround- 
ing world which helped all variations in the direction of an accu- 
rate time-keeper, and checked all these in other directions, and 
then it is obvious that the force of Paley's argument would be 

l Critiques, p. 307. 



56 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

gone ; for it would be demonstrated that an apparatus thoroughly 
well adapted to a particular purpose might be the result of a 
method of trial and error worked by unintelligent agents, as well 
as of the direct application of the means appropriate to that end." * 



Here we have " a revolving barrel " at one end of the 
line, and a watch with its complex apparatus, by which 
it is fitted to record time, at the other. At the outset, 
the barrel, with its inherent capacities, requires to be 
accounted for, then the tendency to vary indefinitely, 
then that something which limits the course of variation 
to one path. This combination of means implies the 
presence and action of intelligence. The actual end 
evinces that " the means appropriate to that end " were 
applied to the production of it. 

Whether natural selection really plays so important a 
part in the origin of species as Mr. Darwin thinks, is, 
to say the least, doubtful. The acknowledged mystery 
that hangs about the facts of correlation, to say noth- 
ing of the difficulties connected with the infertility 
of hybrids, may warrant the surmise that the laws of 
growth have not been fathomed, and that the theory 
of natural selection may have to be qualified, even more 
than its author, with all his liberality of concession in 
his later editions, allowed. Be this as it may, the 
analogy between the operation of natural selection and 
the action of intelligence Mr. Darwin's language abun- 
dantly implies. 

If there is any place where, on the Darwinian philoso- 
phy, chance is to be met with, it is in the sphere of 
variability. It is a topic, therefore, which requires 
attentive consideration. On this subject Mr. Darwin 
says : — 

1 Lay Sermons, pp. 330, 331. 



THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 57 

"I have hitherto sometimes spoken as if the variations — so 
common and multiform with organic beings under domestication, 
and, in a lesser degree, with those in a state of nature — had been 
due to chance. This, of course, is a wholly incorrect expression ; 
but it serves to acknowledge plainly our ignorance of the cause 
of each particular variation." 1 

Nothing occurs without a cause. But it is another 
question whether, in this department of the action of 
natural forces, design is discoverable. Mr. Darwin 
appears to hold that variability furnishes the materials 
for natural selection to act upon, but without reference 
to such prospective action. In regard to the observa- 
ion of Dr. Asa Gray, 2 that "variation has been led 
along certain beneficial lines," he says : — 

" The shape of the fragments of stone at the base of our preci- 
pice may be called accidental ; but this is not strictly correct, for 
the shape of each depends on a long sequence of events, all obey- 
ing natural laws, — on the nature of the rock, on the lines of strati- 
fication or cleavage, on the form of the mountain which depends 
on its upheaval and subsequent denudation, and, lastly, on the 
storm and earthquake which threw down the fragments. But, in 
regard to the use to which the fragments may be put, their shape 
may strictly be said to be accidental. And here we are led to face 
a great difficulty, in alluding to which I am aware that I am travel- 
ling beyond my proper province. 

" An omniscient Creator must have foreseen every consequence 
which results from the laws imposed by him ; but can it be rea- 
sonably maintained that the Creator intentionally ordered, if we 
use the words in any ordinary sense, that certain fragments of 
rock should assume certain shapes, so that the builder might erect 
his edifice? If the various laws which have determined the shape 
of each fragment wei - e not predetermined for the builder's sake, 
can it with any greater probability be maintained that lie specially 
ordained, for the sake of the breeder, each of the innumerable 
variations in our domestic animals and plants; many of these 
variations being of no service to man, and not beneficial, far more 
1 Origin of Species, p. 137. 2 Durwiniana, p. 148. 



58 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

ofteu injurious, to the creatures themselves ? Did he ordain that 
the crop and tail-feathers of the pigeon should vary, in order that 
the fancier might make his grotesque powter and fantail breeds? 
Did he cause the frame and mental qualities of the dog to vary, 
in order that a breed might be formed of indomitable ferocity, 
with jaws- fitted to pin down the bull for man's brutal sport? 
But if we give up the principle in one case ; if we do not admit 
that the variations of the primeval dog were intentionally guided, 
in order that the greyhound, for instance, that perfect image of 
symmetry and vigor, might be formed, — no shadow of reason can 
be assigned for the belief that the variations, alike in nature, and 
the result of the same general laws which have been the ground- 
work through natural selection of the formation of the most 
perfectly adapted animals in the world, man included, were inten- 
tionally and specially guided. However much we may wish it, we 
can hardly follow Professor Asa Gray in his belief that 'variation 
has been led along certain beneficial lines,' like a stream 'along 
definite and useful lines of irrigation.' 

" If we assume that each particular variation was from the 
beginning of all time pre-ordained, the plasticity of the organiza- 
tion, which leads to many injurious deviations of structure, as well 
as that redundant power of reproduction which inevitably leads 
to a struggle for existence, and, as a consequence, to the natural 
selection, and survival of the fittest, must appear to us superfluous 
laws of nature. On the other hand, an omnipotent and omniscient 
Creator ordains every thing, and foresees every thing. Thus we 
are brought face to face with a difficulty as insoluble as is that of 
free-will and predestination." 1 

Here Mr. Darwin appears to find evidences of de- 
sign in the agencies which are concerned in natural 
selection ; but with reference to variability, which fur- 
nishes the materials on which natural selection oper- 
ates, he can see no proof of design as regards the use to 
be made of its results in building up animal structures. 
Yet foresight and plan must be assumed everywhere : 
hence he is brought to an antinomy, an irreconcilable 
contradiction. 

1 Animals and Plants under Domestication, ii. 431. 



THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 59 

This is a strange conclusion. Indefinite variability 
is the assumed fact on which this reasoning proceeds. 
Granting, for the moment, that there is ground for this 
assumption, let us look closely at the inferences con- 
nected with it. In the first place, what if the same 
Agent which broke in pieces the rock, and cast its frag- 
ments down at the base of the precipice, were the 
architect and builder of the edifice ? Should we ques- 
tion that this providing of the materials had reference 
to the purpose in view? Even if the method chosen 
by the Agent for creating the materials struck us as 
wasteful, or otherwise wanting in skill, should we doubt 
that it was part of a plan ? It is the same Agent, the 
same Universal Power, which is manifest in natural 
selection, that is exerted in producing the phenomena 
of variability on which natural selection acts. In the 
second place, Mr. Darwin mixes up a moral question, a 
question pertaining to the theodicy, with the distinct 
problem whether design is, or is not, manifest in the 
origination of animal structures. Why God should plan 
to give existence to this or that animal, or frame nature 
so that man may direct and combine laws in such a way 
as to modify animal structures in this or that direction, 
is a question apart. It is one question whether there 
is arrangement: it is another question whether that 
arrangement is merciful or not. Here general laws — 
the consideration of order — comes in, and evolution 
may help natural theology. In the third place, Mr. 
Darwin's remarks seem to imply that only a single pur- 
pose can be aimed at in the creative activity. The 
rocks which are heaped up at the foot of the precipice, 
if they were intended for the benefit of the builder who 
uses them, may also -serve other uses, — uses possibly 
inscrutable to us. The laws, to say the least, under 



60 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

which they come to be what they are, were the whole 
sweep of their operation and results understood, might 
be seen to be for the best. 

Teleology is not disproved by gradualness of devel- 
opment. The evolution theory is not laid under the 
necessity of so far contradicting the natural convictions 
of the race as to make the human eye an undesigned 
result of unthinking forces. Design is recognized by 
able naturalists who give large room for the poten- 
tiality of protoplasm ; and its plasticity under the influ- 
ence of environment is one of the phases of evolution 
doctrine which is not without eminent advocates among 
the students of nature. Function or future use be- 
comes, under this view, the formative idea which spe- 
cializes organs, and determines structure. An acute 
naturalist who favors this hypothesis thus writes upon 
sexual differences, one of the most impressive illustra- 
tions of design : — 

" Instead of thus eliminating by degrees every trace of finality 
in sexuality, till we merge into merely mechanical results, is it not 
just as logical to say that the sexuality of mammalia and flower- 
ing plants was potentially visible in the conjugation of monera 
and plasmodia ? and that the ' sexual idea ' has reigned throughout, 
function ever dominating structure, till the latter had conformed 
to the more complete function by becoming specialized more and 
more ? Or, in the words of Janet, ' The agreement of several phe- 
nomena, bound together with a future determinate phenomenon, 
supposes a cause in which that future phenomenon is ideally repre- 
sented ; and the probability of the presumption increases with the 
complexity of the concordant phenomena and the number of 
relations which unite them to the final phenomena.' " x 

The writer last named also observes: — 

" Finality is certainly not destroyed, whether we believe organs 
to have been developed by evolution, or to have been created in 

1 Janet, Final Causes, p. 55 : Final Causes, by Mr. George Hens- 
low, in Modern Review, January, 1881. 



THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 6.1 

some analogous manner to the fabrication of a steam-engine by 
man. For my own part, I still bold to tbe theory that uses cause 
adaptations, on the principle that function precedes structure. Thus 
as a graminivorous animal has its food already (so to say) cut up 
into slices in grass-blades, it does not require scissors to reduce it 
to small pieces in order to make a convenient mouthful. But a 
carnivorous animal has a large lump of flesh in the shape of a 
carcass. It requires to cut it up. The action of biting, in order 
to do this previous to masticating, has converted its teeth into 
scissor-like carnassials ; and, as it can no longer masticate, it bolts 
the pieces whole. So, too, man would never have thought of 
making scissors, unless he had had something that he wanted to cut 
up. The parallel is complete : only in the one case it is spontane- 
ously effected by the plasticity and adaptability of living matter, 
and in the other case it is artificially produced by the conscious- 
ness and skill of man." x 

It is plain that the extreme form of Darwinian 
theory, which holds to a boundless variability in proto- 
plasm, and puts the whole differentiating power in the 
environment, does not get rid of design. The outer 
conditions are made to determine every thing. But 
since there is an upward progress from the simplest 
organisms to the most complicated and perfect ; since, 
moreover, this process of building up an orderly sys- 
tem, as regards the proximate causes, is necessary, — 
chance is excluded. The alternative of chance is 
design. 

But the assumption of limitless variability is untena- 
ole. Out of variations numberless there must appear 
individual peculiarities adapted to give success in the 
struggle for existence. Then, in " this ocean of fluc- 
tuation and metamorphosis," variations coinciding with 
these must appear, from generation to generation, to 
join on to them and to build up a highly organized 
species. The series of chances required to be overcome 

1 Modern Review, ut sup., p. 56. 



62 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

is infinite. 1 Such a miracle of luck is incredible. More- 
over, mere selection on the basis of lawless variability- 
will not account for organs and members, which, how- 
ever useful when fully grown, in their beginnings do 
not help, and may hinder, the animal in its struggle for 
existence. Variation is under restraint. It is the result 
of an internal as well as external factor. Professor 
Huxley himself suggests that "further inquiries may 
prove that variability is definite, and is determined in 
certain directions rather than others. It is quite con- 
ceivable that every species tends to produce varieties 
of a limited number and kind," etc. 2 The response of 
the organism to exterior influences is determined by 
impulses within itself. This is the teaching of eminent 
naturalists, as Mivart, Owen, and Virchow. Dana, in 
his lectures to his classes, shows that variation is 
limited by "fundamental laws." Gray teaches that 
" variations " — in other words, " the differences be- 
tween plants and animals — are evidently not from with- 
out, but from within ; not physical, but physiological." 
The occult power " does not act vaguely, producing all 
sorts of variations from a common centre," etc. He 
affirms, that " as species do not now vary at all times 
and places, and in all directions, nor produce crude, 
vague, imperfect, and useless forms, there is no reason 
for supposing that they ever did." 3 The philosopher 
Von Hartmann ingeniously compares natural selection 
to the bolt and coupling in a machine, but affirms that 
"the driving principle," which called new species into 
existence, lay or originated in the organisms. 4 Darwin 
himself, in his Descent of Man, frankly allows that he 

l See Schmid, p. 103; Mozley, Essays, vol. ii. pp. 387 seq. 

s Encycl. Brit., art. " Evolution," vol. viii. p. 751. 

3 Darwiniana, pp. 386, 387. 4 See Schmid, p. 107. 



THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 63 

has exaggerated natural selection as a cause, since it 
fails to account for structures which are neither bene- 
ficial nor injurious. 1 Here, as in regard to the correla- 
tion of parts and organs, he falls back on mystery. 
" The causes and conditions of variation," writes Pro- 
fessor Huxley, "have yet to be thoroughly explored; 
and the importance of natural selection will not be 
impaired, even if further inquiries should prove that 
variability is definite, and is determined in certain 
directions rather than others by conditions inherent in 
that which varies. It is quite conceivable that every 
species tends to produce varieties of a limited number 
and kind, and that the effect of natural selection is to 
favor the development of some of these, while it opposes 
the development of others along their predetermined 
lines of modification." 2 The upshot of the matter is, 
that there is no occasion for puzzling over the design 
of chaotic and purposeless variations, — the stones of 
all shapes at the base of the precipice, — since they 
have only an imaginary existence. Variation is accord- 
ing to law : it tends, like the direct agents in natural 
selection, to the actual issue, — an orderly and beauti- 
ful system of organized beings. 

The argument of design is generally considered to 
be an argument from analogy. Mr. Mill says, — 

" This argument is not drawn from mere resemblances in nature 
to the works of human intelligence, but from the special character of 
these resemblances. The circumstances in which it is alleged that 
the world resembles the works of man are not circumstances taken 
at random, but are particular instances of a circumstance which 
experience shows to have a real connection with an intelligent 
origin, — the fact of conspiring to an end. The argument is not 

i Engl. e<L, p. 146. See Schmid, p. 106. 
2 Encycl. Brit., vol. viii. p. 751. 



64 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

one, therefore, of mere analogy. As mere analogy, it has weight; 
but it is more than analogy, it is an inductive argument." 1 

This explanation of the character of the argument 
is open to criticism in at least one particular. If the 
argument is one of analogy, it is not an inference from 
what we observe in products which we have ascer- 
tained by experience to be of human manufacture. 
The evidence of design is not less directly manifest in 
the human eye or ear than it would be in a watch 
when seen for the first time. The analogy is not be 
tween things in nature and things made by human art. 
The proper statement is, that, knowing what design 
is by the experience of our own voluntary action, we 
recognize its marks wherever we meet with them, — 
whether in the products of nature, or in works made 
by men. 

But there is much to be said in behalf of the position 
maintained by Trendelenburg, Dorner, and Porter, that 
final cause is an a priori principle on a level with the 
idea of efficient cause. Is not design taken for granted 
in all our approaches to nature ? Is not the question 
" What for ? " as native to the mind as the questions 
"■What?" or "Whence?" If there are many objects 
with regard to which we never inquire why they exist, 
or why they exist where and when they do, the same is 
true as regards the efficient causes that produce them. 
With regard to things generally, there are sluggish 
minds which seldom are stirred with a curiosity to know 
what causes brought them into being ; yet the a priori 
character of the principle of efficient cause is manifest. 
When the question "What for?" is answered, when 
we discover the use or end of something in nature, we 

i Essays on Theism, etc., p. 170. 



THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE. BEING OF GOD. 65 

are struck with a sensation of pleasure like tliat expe- 
rienced in a successful search for causal antecedents. 
Does not this indicate that to the comprehension of 
nature the perception of design is necessary ? Inquisi- 
tive students of nature, as Harvey, Copernicus, and 
Newton, have been guided to important discoveries by 
the expectation that nature would be conformed to a 
plan. Kobert Boyle tells us, — 

" I remember that when I asked our famous Harvey what were 
the things that induced him to think of the circulation of the 
blood, he answered me, that when he took notice of the valves in 
many parts of the body, so placed that they gave free passage to 
the blood towards the heart, but opposed to the passage of the 
venous blood the contrary way, he was invited to think that so 
prudent a cause as nature had not placed so many valves without a 
design, and no design seemed more probable than that, since the 
blood could not well, because of the intervening valves, be sent by 
the veins to the limits, it should be sent through the arteries, and 
returned through the veins, whose valves did not oppose its course 
that way." 

Kepler was moved to his discoveries by " an exalted 
faith, anterior and superior to all science, in the exist- 
ence of intimate relations between the constitution of 
man's mind and that of God's firmament." * Such a 
faith is at the root of " the prophetic inspiration of the 
geometers," which the progress of observation verifies. 
Does not induction rest on the assumption of design? 
It is assumed that nature is a system of thought-rela- 
tions : it is an orderly, intelligible system. This implies 
that things are harmoniously adjusted to one another, 
and that there is a mutual interdependence between 
nature and mind. There is an adaptation of the object 
of investigation to the organ of knowledge, and vice 
1 Peirce, Ideality in tue Physical Sciences, p. 17. 



G6 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

versa. At the basis of induction is the postulate of the 
uniformity of nature. This principle is not the result 
of induction : it is the silent premise in every induc- 
tive argument. Induction does not give validity to it, 
but borrows validity from it. But this uniformity of 
nature, or stated recurrence of phenomena, involves a 
plan. What is meant by the explanation of any object 
of nature ? "What is to explain any particular organ in 
a living being ? It is requisite to define its end. There 
can be no explanation of an organism which does not 
presuppose adaptation. Says Janet, — 

" Laplace perceived that the simplest laws are the most likely 
to be true. But I do not see why it should be so on the supposi- 
tion of an absolutely blind cause ; for, after all, the inconceivable 
swiftness which the system of Ptolemy supposed has nothing physi- 
cally impossible in it, and the complication of movements has 
nothing incompatible with the idea of a mechanical cause. Why, 
then, do we expect to find simple movements in nature, and speed 
in proportion, except because we instinctively attribute a sort of 
intelligence and choice to the First Cause?" 

Janet does not consider the idea of design to be a 
•priori. But does not this question, and the whole para- 
graph which we are quoting, imply it ? He goes on to 
say, — 

" Now, experience justifies this hypothesis: at least it did so 
with Copernicus and Galileo. It did so, according to Laplace, in 
the debate between Clairaut and Buffon ; the latter maintaining 
against the former that the law of attraction remained the same at 
all distances. ' This time,' says Laplace, ' the metaphysician was 
right as against the geometrician.' " x 

The intuition of the Unconditioned Being involves 
the infinitude of his natural attributes. He is inde- 
pendent of temporal limitations ; that is, he is eternal, 
i Final Causes, p. 1(>8. 



THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 67 

He is independent of spatial limitations ; that is, he is 
omnipresent. The categories of space and time cannot 
be applied to him, — a truth which we can only express 
by saying that he is above time and space. His power 
is infinite ; that is, it can do every thing which is an 
object of power, and admits of no imaginable increase. 
His knowledge, since final causes reveal his personalit}^, 
is equally without limit. 

IV. The moral argument. The righteousness and 
goodness of God are evident from conscience. Right is 
the supreme, sole authoritative impulse in the soul. He 
who planted it there, and gave it this imperative char- 
acter, must himself be righteous. From the testimony 
of " the vicegerent within the heart " we infer " the 
righteousness of the Sovereign who placed it there." 

But what are the contents of the law? What has 
he bidden man, by "the law written on the heart," 
to be and to do ? He has enjoined goodness. When 
we discover that the precept of the unwritten law 
of conscience is love, we have the clearest and most 
undeniable evidence that love is the preference of the 
Lawgiver, and that he is love. 

The argument from conscience is a branch of the 
argument Trom final causes. In this inward law there 
is revealed the end of our being, — an end not to be 
realized, as in physical nature, by a method of neces- 
sity, but freely. We are to make ourselves what our 
Maker designed us to be. The law is the ideal, the 
thought of the Creator, and a spur to its realization. 
It discloses the holiness of God, as design in the ex- 
ternal world reveals his intelligence. This truth is 
forcibly expressed by Erskine of Linlathen : " When I 
attentively consider what is going on in my conscience, 
the chief thing forced on my notice is, that I find 



68 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

myself face to face with a purpose — not my own, for 
I am often conscious of resisting it, but which domi- 
nates me, and makes itself felt as ever present, as the 
very root and reason of my being." " This conscious- 
ness of a purpose concerning me that I should be a 
good man — right, true, and unselfish — is the first firm 
footing I have in the region of religious thought ; for 
I cannot dissociate the idea of a purpose from that 
of a purposer ; and I cannot but identify this Purposer 
with the Author of my being and the being of all 
beings ; and, further, I cannot but regard his purpose 
towards me as the unmistakable indication of his own 
character." 1 

Is this conviction, which the very constitution of our 
being compels us to cherish, contradicted by the course 
of the world? There is moral evil in the world. But 
moral evil, though he permits, he does not cause. Nor 
can this permission be challenged as unrighteous or 
unjust, until it is proved that there are not incompati- 
bilities between the most desirable system of created 
things, including beings endowed with free agency, and 
the exclusion, by direct power, of the abuse of that 
divine gift by which man resembles his Creator. If it 
were made probable that the permission of moral evil is 
inconsistent with infinite power and infinite goodness, or 
with both, the result would simply be a contradiction 
between the revelation of God in our intuition of un- 
conditioned being and in our own moral nature, and the 
disclosure of him in the course of the world. 

If we are content to leave the permission of moral 
evil, the problem of the theodicy, an unfathomable 
mystery, which only ignorance will bring foward as an 

i The Spiritual Order and other Papers, pp. 47, 48. See Flint, The- 
ism, p. 402. 



THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 69 

objection to divine power and goodness, we may discern 
abundant traces of God's rectitude and benevolence in 
the career of individuals, families, and nations. 

V. History, as containing at once a providential 
order and a moral order enclosed within it, discovers 
God. Events do not take place in a chaotic series. A 
progress is discernible, an orderly succession of phenom- 
ena, the accomplishment of ends by the concurrence of 
agencies beyond the power of individuals to originate 
or combine. There is a power that " makes for right- 
eousness." Amid all the disorder of the world, as Bishop 
Butler has convincingly shown, there is manifested, on 
the part of the Power which governs, an approbation of 
right and a condemnation of wrong, analogous to the 
manifestation of justice and holiness which emanates 
from righteous rulers among men. If righteousness 
appears to be but imperfectly carried out, it is an indi- 
cation that in this life the system is incomplete, and 
that here we see only its beginnings. 

It is objected to the belief that God is personal, that 
personality implies limitation, and that, if personal, God 
could not be infinite and absolute. " Infinite " (and the 
same is true of "absolute") is an adjective, not a sub- 
stantive. When used as a noun, preceded by the defi- 
nite article, it signifies, not a being, but an abstraction. 
When it stands as a predicate, it means that the subject, 
be it space, time, or some quality of a being, is without 
limit. Thus, when I affirm that space is infinite, I 
express a positive perception, or thought. I mean not 
only that imagination can set no bounds to space, but 
also that this inability is owing, not to any defect in the 
imagination or conceptive faculty, but to the nature 
of the object. When I say that God is infinite in power, 



70 THE GROUNDS OF TIIEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

I mean that he can do all things -which are objects 
of power, or that his power is incapable of increase. 
No amount of power can be added to the power of which 
he is possessed. It is only when " the Infinite " is taken 
as the synonyme of the sum of all existence, that person- 
ality is made to be incompatible with God's infinitude. 
No such conception of him is needed for the satisfaction 
of the reason or the heart of man. Enough that he is 
the ground of the existence of all beings outside of 
himself, or the creative and sustaining power. There 
are no limitations upon his power which he has not 
voluntarily set. Such limitation — as in giving being 
to rational agents capable of self-determination, and in 
allowing them scope for its exercise — is not imposed 
on him, but depends on his own choice. 

An absolute being is independent of all other beings 
for its existence and for the full realization of its 
nature. It is contended, that inasmuch as self-con- 
sciousness is conditioned on the distinction of the ego 
from the non-ego, the subject from the object, a personal 
being cannot have the attribute of self-existence, cannot 
be absolute. Without some other existence than him- 
self, a being cannot be self-conscious. The answer to 
this is, that the premise is an unwarranted generalization 
from what is true in the case of the human, finite per- 
sonality of man, which is developed in connection with 
a body, and is only one of numerous finite personalities 
under the same class. To assert that self-consciousness 
cannot exist independently of such conditions, because 
it is through them that I come to a knowledge of 
myself, is a great leap in logic. The proposition that 
man is in the image of God does not necessarily imply 
that the divine intelligence is subject to the restrictions 
and infirmities that belong; to the human. It is not 



THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE BEING OF GOD. 71 

implied that God ascertains truth by a gradual process 
of investigation or of reasoning, or that he deliberates 
on a plan of action, and casts about for the appropriate 
means of executing it. These limitations are charac- 
teristic, not of intelligence in itself, but of finite in- 
telligence. It is meant that he is not an impersonal 
principal or occult force, but is self-conscious and self- 
determining. Nor is it asserted that he is perfectly 
comprehensible by us. It is not pretended that we are 
able fully to think away the limitations which cleave 
to us in our character as dependentand finite, and to 
frame thus an adequate conception of a person infinite 
and absolute. Nevertheless, the existence of such a 
person, whom we can apprehend if not comprehend, is 
verified to our minds by sufficient evidence. Pantheism, 
with its immanent Absolute, void of personal attributes, 
and its self-developing universe, postulates a deity lim- 
ited, subject to change, and reaching self-consciousness 
— if it is ever reached — only in men. And Pantheism, 
by denying the free and responsible nature of man, 
maims the creature whom it pretends to deify, and anni- 
hilates not only morality, but religion also, in any 
proper sense of the term. 

The citadel of Theism is in the consciousness of our 
own personality. "Within ourselves God reveals him- 
self more directly than through any other channel. He 
impinges, so to speak, on the soul which finds in its 
primitive activity an intimation and implication of an 
unconditioned Cause on whom it is dependent, — a 
Cause self-conscious like itself, and speaking with holy 
authority in conscience, wherein also is presented the 
end which the soul is to pursue through its own free 
self-determination, — an end which could only be set by 
a Being both intelligent and holy. The yearning for 



72 THE GROUNDS OF TIIEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

fellowship with the Being thus revealed — indistinct 
though it be, well-nigh stifled by absorption in finite 
objects and in the vain quest for rest and joy in them — 
is inseparable from human nature. There is an unap- 
prised thirst, in the soul when cut off from God. It 
seeks for " living water." 






man 



Atheism is an insult to humanity. A good man is a 
an with a purpose, a righteous purpose. He aims at 
well-being, — at the well-being of himself and of the 
world of which he forms a part. This end he pursues 
seriously, and earnestly, and feels bound to pursue, let 
the cost to himself be what it may. To tell him that 
while he is under a sacred obligation to have this pur- 
pose, and pursue this end, there is yet no purpose or 
end in the universe in which he is acting his part — 
what is this but to offer a gross affront to his reason 
and moral sense ? He is to abstain from frivolity ; he is 
to act from an intelligent purpose, for the accomplish- 
ment of rational ends: but the universe, he is told, is 
the offspring of gigantic frivolity. The latter is with- 
out purpose or end : there chance or blind fate rules. 






CHAPTER III. 

THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES : PANTHE- 
ISM, POSITIVISM, MATERIALISM, AGNOSTICISM. 

Pantheism identifies God with the world, or the sum 
total of being. It differs from Atheism in holding to 
something besides and beneath finite things, — an all- 
pervading Cause or Essence. It differs from Deism in 
denying that God is separate from the world, and that 
the world is sustained and guided by energies imparted 
from without, though inherent in it. It does not differ 
from Theism in affirming the immanence of God, for 
this Theism likewise teaches ; but it differs from Theism 
in denying to the immanent Power personal conscious- 
ness and will, and an existence independent of the 
world. Pantheism denies, and Theism asserts, creation. 
With the denial of will and conscious intelligence, Pan- 
theism excludes design or final causes. Finite things 
emerge into being, and pass away, and the course of 
nature proceeds through the perpetual operation of an 
agency which takes no cognizance of its work except 
so far as it may arrive at self-consciousness in man. 

In the system of Spinoza, the most celebrated and 
influential of modern Pantheists, it is asserted that there 
is, and can be, but one substance, — una et unica substan- 
tia. Of the infinite number of infinite attributes which 
constitute the one substance, two are discerned by us,— 
extension and thought. These, distinct in our pcrcep- 

73 



74 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

tion, are not disparate in the substance. Both being 
manifestations of a simple identical essence, the order 
of existence is parallel to the order of thought. All 
individual things are modes of one or other of the attri- 
butes, that is, of the substance as far as it is discerned 
by us. There is a complete correspondence or harmony, 
although there is no reciprocal influence, between bodies 
and minds. But the modes do not make up the sub- 
stance, which is prior to them: they are transient as 
ripples on the surface of the sea. The imagination re- 
gards them as entities ; but reason looks beneath them, 
to the eternal essence of which they are but a fleeting 
manifestation. 

No philosopher, with the possible exception of Aris- 
totle, has been more lauded for his rigorous logic than 
Spinoza. In truth, few philosophers have included more 
fallacies in the exposition of their systems. The pages 
of the Ethics swarm with paralogisms, all veiled under 
the forms of rigid mathematical statement. His fun- 
damental definitions, whatever verbal precision may 
belong to them, are, as regards the realities of being, 
unproved assumptions. His reasoning, from beginning 
to end, is vitiated by the realistic presupposition which 
underlies the a priori arguments of Anselm and Des- 
cartes for the being of God, that the actual existence of 
a being can be inferred from the definition of a word. 1 
He falls into this mistake of finding proof of the reality 
of a thing from the contents of a conception, in his very 
first definition, where he says, " By that which is the 
cause of itself, I understand that whose essence involves 
existence, or that whose nature can only be conceived 
as existent." His argument is an argument from defi- 
nitions, without having offered proof of the existence of 
1 See Ueberweg, History of Philosophy, ii. 69. 



THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 75 

the thing defined. Spinoza fails to prove that only one 
substance can exist, and that no other substance can be 
brought into being which is capable of self-activity, 
though dependent for the origin and continuance of 
its existence upon another. Why the one and simple 
substance should have modes ; why it should have these 
discoverable modes, and no other ; how the modes of 
thought and extension are made to run parallel with 
each other ; how the infinite variety of modes, embra- 
cing stars and suns, men and animals, minds and bodies, 
and all other finite things, are derived in their order 
and place, — these are problems with regard to which 
the system of Spinoza, though professing to explain 
the universe by a method purely deductive, leaves us 
wholly in the dark. 1 

The ideal Pantheism of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, 
pursues a different path. It undertakes still to unveil 
the Absolute Being, and from the Absolute to trace the 
evolution of all concrete existences, mental and mate- 
rial. The Absolute in Fichte is the universal ego, of 
which individual minds, together with external things, 
the objects of thoughts, are the phenomenal product, — 
a universal ego which is void of consciousness, and of 
which it is vain to attempt to form a conception. 
Schelling, avoiding idealism, made the Absolute the 
point of indifference, and common basis of subject and 
object ; and for the perception of this impersonal Deity, 
which is assumed to be indefinable, and not an object 
of thought, he postulated an impossible faculty of intel- 
lectual intuition, wherein the individual escapes from 



1 One of the hard questions proposed to Spinoza by Tschiruhausern, 
his correspondent, was, how the existence and variety of external 
things is to be deduced from the attribute of extension. See Pollock's 
Spinoza, His Life and Philosophy, p. 173. 



76 THE GROUNDS OF TIIEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

himself, and soars above the conditions or essential 
limits of conscious thinking. Hegel, starting, like 
Schelling, with the assumption that subject and object, 
thought and thing, are identical, ventures on the bold 
emprise of setting down all the successive stages through 
which thought in its absolute or most general form, by 
means of a kind of momentum assumed to inhere in 
it, develops the entire chain of concepts, or the whole 
variety and aggregate of particular existences, up to 
the point where, in the brain of the philosopher, the 
universe thus constituted attains to complete self-con- 
sciousness. In the logic of. Hegel, we are told, the 
universe reveals itself to the spectator with no aid from 
experience in the process of its self-unfolding. The 
complex organism of thought, which is identical with 
the world of being, evolves itself under his eye. 

There is a difficulty, to begin with, in this self-evolv- 
ing of " the idea." Motion is presupposed, and motion 
is a conception derived from experience. Moreover, 
few critics at present would contend that all the links 
in this metaphysical chain are forged of solid metal. 
There are breaks which are filled up with an unsub- 
stantial substitute for it. Transitions are effected — 
for example, where matter, or life, or mind emerge — 
rather by sleight of hand than by a legitimate applica- 
tion of the logical method. But if it were granted 
that the edifice is compact, and coherent in all its parts, 
it is still only a ghostly castle. It is an ideal skeleton 
of a universe. Its value is at best hypothetical and 
negative. If a world were to exist, and to be rationally 
framed, it might possibly be conformed to this concep- 
tion or outline. Whether the world is a reality, expe- 
rience alone can determine. The highest merit which 
can be claimed for the ideal scheme of Ilecrel is such as 



THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 77 

belongs to the plans of an architect as they are con- 
ceived in his mind, before a beginning has been made 
of the edifice, or the spade has touched the ground. 

Independently of other difficulties in the way of the 
various theories of Pantheism which have been pro- 
pounded in ancient and modern times, it is a sufficient 
refutation of them that they stand in contradiction to 
consciousness, and that they are at variance with con- 
science. It is through self-consciousness that our first 
notion of substance and of unity is derived. The mani- 
fold operations of thought, feeling, imagination, memory, 
affection, consciously proceed from a single source 
within. The mind is revealed to itself as a separate, 
substantial, undivided entity. Pantheism, in resolving 
personal being into a mere phenomenon, or transient 
phase of an impersonal essence, and in abolishing the 
gulf of separation between the subject and the object, 
clashes with the first and clearest affirmation of con- 
sciousness. 

Every system of Pantheism is necessarian. It is vain 
to say, that, where there is no constraint from without, 
there is freedom of the will. A plant growing out of 
a seed would not become free by becoming conscious. 
The determinism which refers all voluntary action to a 
force within which is capable of moving only on one 
line, and is incapable of alternative action, is equiva- 
lent, in its bearing on responsibility, to fatalism. On 
this theory, moral accountableness is an illusion. 1 No 
distinction is left between natural history and moral 
history. Pantheism sweeps away the absolute antithe- 
sis between good and evil, the perception of which is the 
very life of conscience. Under that philosophy, evil, 
wherever it occurs, is normal. Evil, when viewed in all 
1 See Martineau, A Study of Spinoza, p. 233. 



78 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

its relations, is good. It appears to be the % opposite of 
good, only when it is contemplated in a more restricted 
relation, and from a point of view too confined. Such 
a judgment respecting moral evil undermines morality 
in theory, and, were it acted on, would corrupt soci- 
ety. It would dissolve the bonds of obligation. In the 
proportion in which the unperverted moral sense cor- 
responds to the reality of things, to that extent is 
Pantheism in all of its forms disproved. 

Positivism is the antipode of Pantheistic philosophy. 
So far from laying claim to omniscience, it goes to the 
other extreme of disclaiming all knowledge of the origin 
of things or of their interior nature. A fundamental 
principle of Positivism, as expounded by Comte, is the 
ignoring of both efficient and final causes. There is no 
proof, it is affirmed, that such causes exist. Science 
takes notice of naught but phenomena presented to the 
senses. The whole function of science is to classify 
facts under the rubrics of similarity and sequence. The 
sum of human knowledge hath this extent, no more. 
As for any links of connection between phenomena, or 
any plan under which they occur, science knows noth- 
ing of either. 

But where do we get the notion of similarity, and of 
simultaneity and succession in time? The senses do 
not provide ns with these ideas. At the threshold, 
then, Positivism violates its own primary maxim. The 
principle of causation and the perception of design 
have a genesis which entitle them to not less credit 
than is given to the recognition of likeness and tem- 
poral sequence. A Positivist, however disposed, with 
M. Comte, to discard psychology, must admit that there 
are mental phenomena. He must admit that they form 
together a group having a distinct character. He 



THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 79 

must refer them to a distinct entity, or lie must refer 
them to a material origin. In the latter case, he lapses 
into materialism. 

The law of three successive states, — the religious, the 
metaphysical, and the positive, — which Comte asserted 
to belong to the history of thought, — this law, in the 
form in which it was proclaimed by Comte, is without 
foundation in historical fact. Belief in a personal God 
has co-existed, and does now co-exist, in connection with 
a belief in second causes, and loyalty to the maxims of 
inductive investigation. 

Mr. Mill, while adhering to the proposition that we 
know only phenomena, attempted to rescue the Posi- 
tivist scheme from scepticism, which is its proper corol- 
lary, by holding to something exterior to us, which is 
" the permanent possibility of sensations," and by speak- 
ing of " a thread of consciousness." But matter cannot 
be made a something which produces sensations, with- 
out giving up the Positivist denial both of causation 
and of our knowledge of any thing save phenomena. 
Nor is it possible to speak of a " thread of conscious- 
ness," if there be nothing in the mind but successive 
states of consciousness. Mr. Mill was bound by a logi- 
cal necessity to deny the existence of any thing except 
mental sensations, — phenomena of his own individual 
consciousness ; or if he overstepped the limit of phe- 
nomena, and believed in "a something," whether ma- 
terial or mental, he did it at the sacrifice of his 
fundamental doctrine. 1 

The principal adversaries of Theism at the present 

day are Materialism and Agnosticism. Materialism is 

the doctrine that mind has no existence except as a 

function of the body : it is a product of organization. 

1 See, on this topic, Flint, Antitheistic Theories, pp. 185, 186. 




80 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

In its crass form, Materialism affirms that the brain 
secretes thought as the liver secretes bile. This ex- 
ploded view involves the notion that thought is a 
material substance somehow contained in the brain. 
In its more refined statement, Materialism asserts that 
thought, feeling, volition, are phenomena of the nervous 
organism, as magnetism is the property of the loadstone. 
Thought is compared to a flame, which first burns 
faintly, then more brightly, then flickers, and at length 
goes out, as the material source of combustion is con- 
sumed or dissipated. 

Materialism is a theory which was brought forward 
in very ancient times. It is not open to the reproach, 
nor can it boast of the attraction, of novelty. And it 
deserves to be remarked, that the data on which its 
merit as a theory is to be judged remain substantially 
unaltered. It is a serious though frequent mistake to 
think that modern physiology, in its microscopic exam- 
ination of the brain, has discovered any new clew to the 
solution of the problem of the relation of the brain to 
the mind. The evidences of the close connection and 
interaction of mind and body, or of mental and physi- 
cal states, are not more numerous or more plain now 
than they have always been. That fatigue dulls the 
attention, that narcotics stimulate or stupefy the powers 
of thought and emotion, that fever may produce de- 
lirium, and a blow on the head may suspend conscious- 
ness, are facts with which mankind have always been 
familiar. The influence of the body on the mind is 
in countless ways manifest. On the contrary, that the 
physical organism is affected by mental states is an 
equally common experience. The feeling of guilt sends 
the blood to the cheek ; fear makes the knees quake ; 
joy and love brighten the eye ; the will curbs and con- 



THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 81 

trols the bodily organs, or puts them in motion in obedi- 
ence to its behest. 

Not only are the facts on either side familiar to every- 
body, but no nearer approach has been made towards 
bridging the gulf between physical states — in particu- 
lar, molecular movements of the brain — and conscious- 
ness. Says Professor Tyndall, " The passage from the 
physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of con- 
sciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite 
thought and a definite molecular action in the brain 
occur simultaneously, we do not possess the intellectual 
organ, nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, which 
would enable us to pass by a process of reasoning 
from the one to the other. They appear together, but 
we do not know why. Were our minds and senses so 
expanded, strengthened, and illuminated as to enable us 
to see and feel the very molecules of the brain; were we 
capable of following their motions, all their groupings, 
all their electric discharges, if such there be ; and were 
we intimately acquainted with the corresponding states 
of thought and feeling, — we should be as far as ever 
from the solution of the problem, How are these physi- 
cal states connected with the facts of consciousness? " J 
There is a class of phenomena which no physical observa- 
tion is capable of revealing. If the brain of Sophocles, 
when he was composing the Antigone, had been laid 
bare, and the observer had possessed an organ of vision 
capable of discerning every movement within it, he 
would have perceived not the faintest trace of the 
thoughts which enter into that poem, — or of the senti- 
ments that inspired the author. One might as well cut 
open a bean-stalk, or search a handful of sand, in the 
hope of finding thought and emotion. 

1 Fragments of Science, p. 121. 



82 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

It is easy to prove, and it has been proved, that 
Materialism regarded as a theory is self-destructive. 
If opinion is merely a product of the molecular motion 
of nervous substance, on what ground is one opinion 
preferred to another ? Is not one shuffle of atoms as 
normal as another? if not, by what criterion is one to 
be approved, and the other rejected ? How can either 
be said to be true or false, when both are equally neces- 
sary, and there is no norm to serve as a touchstone of 
their validity? It is impossible to pronounce one kind 
of brain normal, and another abnormal ; since the rule 
on which the distinction is to be made is itself a mere 
product of molecular action, and therefore possessed 
of no independent, objective validity. To declare a 
given doctrine true, and another false, when each has 
the same justification as the rule on which they are 
judged, is a suicidal proceeding. Like absurdities fol- 
low the assertion by a materialist that one thing is 
morally right, and another morally wrong, one thing 
noble, and another base, one thing wise, and another 
foolish. There is no objective truth, no criterion hav- 
ing any surer warrant than the objects to which it is 
applied. There is no judge between the parties : the 
judge is himself a party on trial. Thus Materialism 
lapses into scepticism. Physiology is powerless to 
explain the simple fact of sense-perception, or the 
rudimental feeling at the basis of it. A wave of 
tenuous ether strikes on the retina of the eye. The 
impact of the ether induces a molecular motion in the 
optic nerve, which, in turn, produces a corresponding 
effect in the sensorium lodged in the skull. On this 
condition there ensues a feeling ; but this feeling, a 
moment's reflection will show, is something totally 
dissimilar to the wave-motions which preceded and pro- 



THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 83 

voked it. But, further, in the act of perception the 
mind attends to the sensation, and compares one sensa- 
tion with another. This discrimination is a mental act 
on which Materialism sheds not the faintest ray of light. 
The facts of memory, of conception and reasoning, the 
phenomena of conscience, the operations of the will, — 
of these the materialistic theory can give no reasonable 
or intelligible account. The materialist is obliged to 
deny moral freedom. Voluntary action he holds to 
be necessitated action. The consciousness of liberty 
with the corresponding feelings of self-approbation or 
guilt are stigmatized as delusive. No man could have 
chosen or acted otherwise than in fact he did choose 
or act, any more than he could have added a cubit 
to his stature. Of the origin and persistency of these 
ideas and convictions of the soul, Materialism hope- 
lessly fails to give any rational account. 

Materialism, as it is usually held at present, starts 
with the fact of the simultaneity of thoughts and mo- 
lecular changes. The task which it has to fulfil is that 
of showing how the former are produced by the latter. 
How do brain-movements produce thought-movements ? 
If consciousness enters as an effect into the chain of 
molecular motion, then, by the accepted law of con- 
servation and correlation, consciousness, in turn, is a 
cause re-acting upon the brain. But this conclusion is 
directly contrary to the materialistic theory, and is ac- 
cordingly rejected. It will not do to allow that force is 
convertible into consciousness. There must be no break 
in the physical chain. Consciousness is excluded from 
being a link in this chain. Consciousness can subtract 
no force from matter. It will not do to answer that 
consciousness is the attendant of the motions of matter. 
What causes it to attend ? What is the ground of the 



84 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

parallelism which exists between the series of mental 
and the series of material manifestations? Is it from 
the nature of matter that both alike arise ? Then, how 
can thought be denied to be a link in the physical 
series ? If it be some form of being neither material 
nor mental, the same consequence follows, and all the 
additional difficulties are incurred which belong to 
the monistic doctrine of Spinoza. 

Such are the perplexities which ensue upon the 
attempt to hold that man is a conscious automaton. 
They are not avoided by imagining matter to be en- 
dowed with mystical and marvellous capacities, which 
would make it different from itself, and endue it with 
a heterogeneous nature. Secret potencies, after the 
manner of the hylozoist Pantheism of the ancients, are 
attributed to the primeval atoms. " Mind-stuff, " or an 
occult mentality, is imagined to reside in the clod, or, 
to make the idea more attractive, in the effulgent sun. 
The Platonic philosophy is said to lurk potentially in 
its beams. This is fancy, not science. The reality of 
a mental subject, in which the modes of consciousness 
have their unity, is implied in the language of material- 
ists, even when they are advocating their theory. The 
presence of a personal agent by whom thoughts and 
things are compared, their order of succession observed, 
and their origin investigated, is constantly assumed. 

The proposition that the ideas of cause and effect, 
substance, self, etc., which are commonly held to be 
of subjective origin, are the product of sensations, and 
derived from experience, is disproved by the fact that 
experience is impossible without them. In establishing 
the a priori character of the intuitions, Kant accom- 
plished a work which forever excludes materialism 
from being the creed of any but confused and illogical 
reasoners. 



THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 85 

Agnosticism, the system of Herbert Spencer, in- 
cludes disbelief in the personality of God, but also 
equally in the personality of man. There is, of course, 
the verbal admission of a subject and object of knowl- 
edge. This distinction, it is even said, is " the con- 
sciousness of a difference transcending all other differ- 
ences." 1 But subject and object, knower and thing 
known, are pronounced to be purely phenomenal. The 
reality behind them is said to be utterly incognizable. 
Nothing is known of it but its bare existence. So, too, 
we are utterly in the dark as to the relations subsisting 
among things as distinguished from their transfigured 
manifestations in consciousness; for these manifesta- 
tions reveal nothing save the bare existence of objects, 
together with relations between them which are per- 
fectly inscrutable. The phenomena are symbols, but 
they are symbols only in the algebraic sense. They are 
not pictures, they are not representations of the objects 
that produce them. They are effects, in consciousness, 
of unknown agencies. The order in which the effects 
occur suggests, we are told, a corresponding order in 
these agencies. But what is " order," what is regularity 
of succession, when predicated of noumena, but words 
void of meaning ? " What we are conscious of as prop- 
erties of matter, even clown to its weight and resistance, 
are but subjective affections produced by objective 
agencies which are unknown and unknowable." 2 These 
effects are generically classified as matter, motion, and 
force. These terms express certain " likenesses of 
kind," the most general likenesses, in the subjective 
affections thus produced. There are certain likenesses 
of connection in these effects, which we class as laws. 
Matter and motion, space and time, are reducible to 

1 Principles of Psychology, 2d cd., i. 157. 2 Ibid., i. 493. 



86 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

force ; but " force " only designates the subjective 
affection in its ultimate or most general expression. 
Of force as an objective reality we know nothing. It 
follows that the same is true of cause, and of every 
other term descriptive of power. There is power, there 
is cause, apart from our feeling ; but as to what they 
are we are entirely in the dark. " The interpretation 
of all phenomena in terms of matter, motion, and force, 
is nothing more than the reduction of our complex 
s}mibols of thought to the simplest s} 7 mbols ; and when 
the equation is brought to its lowest terms, the symbols 
remain symbols still." l Further : the world of conscious- 
ness, and the world of things as apprehended in con- 
sciousness, are sjanbols of a Reality to which both in 
common are to be attributed. " A Power of which the 
nature remains forever inconceivable, and to which no 
limits in Time or Space can be imagined, works in us 
certain effects." 2 Thus all our science consists in a 
classification of states of consciousness which are 
the product of the inscrutable Cause. It is a " trans- 
figured Realism." Reality, in any other sense, is a 
terra incognita. 

With these views is associated Mr. Spencer's doctrine 
of evolution. Evolution is the method of action of the 
inscrutable force. Homogeneous matter diversifies or 
differentiates itself. The development goes on until 
nervous organism arises, and reaches a certain stage of 
complexity, when sentience appears, and at length per- 
sonal consciousness, with all its complexity of contents. 
But consciousness is a growth. All our mental life is 
woven out of sensations. Intuitions are the product 
of experience, — not of the individual merely, but of 
the race, since the law of heredity transmits the acqui- 

l First Principles, 2d ed., p. 558. 2 Ibid., p. 557. 



THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 87 

sitions of the ancester to his progeny. So mind is built 
up from rudimental sensations. The lowest form of 
life issues at last in the intellect of a Bacon or a New- 
ton. And life, it seems to be held, is evolved from 
unorganized matter. 

What, according to Spencer's own principles, are 
" matter," and " nervous organism," and " life," inde- 
pendently of consciousness, and when there is no con- 
sciousness to apprehend them? How can Nature be 
used to beget consciousness, and consciousness be used, 
in turn, to beget Nature ? How are reason, imagination, 
memory, conscience, and the entire stock of mental 
experiences of which a Leibnitz or Dante is capable, 
evolved from nerve-substance ? These and like ques- 
tions we waive, and direct our attention to the doctrine 
of " the Unknowable." 

What is " the Absolute " and " the Infinite " which 
are declared to be out of the reach of knowledge, and 
which, the moment the knowing faculty attempts to 
deal with them, lead to manifold contradictions ? They 
are mere abstractions. They have no other than a 
merely verbal existence. They are reached by think- 
ing away all limits, all conditions, all specific qualities : 
in short, " the Absolute " as thus described is nothing. 
If this fictitious absolute be treated as real, absurdities 
follow. The antinomies which Kant and Hamilton 
derive from a quantitative conception of the Infinite are 
the result. 1 

1 The antinomies of Kant, and of Hamilton and Mansel, are capable 
of being resolved. They involve fallacies. A quantitative idea of the 
Infinite is frequently at the basis of the assertion that contradictions 
belong to the conception of it. The Infinite is treated as if it were 
a complete whole, i.e., as if it were a finite. Hamilton's doctrine of 
nescience depends partly on the idea of " the Infinite " and " the Abso- 
lute " as mere abstractions, and unrelated, and partly on a restricted defi- 
nition of knowledge. "We cannot know space, he tells us, as absolutely 



88 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

But this is not the Absolute which Spencer actually 
places at the foundation of his system. The Absolute 
which he puts to this use is antithetical to relative 
being: it is correlated to the relative. Moreover, the 
Absolute comes within the pale of consciousness, be the 
cognition of it however vague. Only so far as we are 
conscious of it, have we any evidence of its reality. 
Moreover, it is the cause of the relative. It is to the 
agency of the Absolute that all states of consciousness 
are referable. " It works in ws," says Spencer, " certain 
effects." Plainly, the Absolute, the real Absolute, is 
related. Only as related in the ways just stated is its 
existence known. Mr. Spencer says himself that the 
mind must in " some dim mode of consciousness posit 
a non-relative, and, in some similarly dim mode of con- 
sciousness, a relation between it and the relative.'''' 1 

Plainly, we know not only that the Absolute is, but 
also, to the same extent, ivhat it is. But let us look 
more narrowly at the function assigned to the Abso- 
lute, and the mode in which we ascertain it. Here Mr. 
Spencer brings in the principle of cause. The Abso- 
lute is the cause of both subject and object. And the 
idea of cause we derive, according to his own teaching, 
from the changes of consciousness which imply causa- 
tion. " The force," he says, " by which we ourselves 
produce changes, and which serves to symbolize the 

bounded, or as infinitely unbounded. The first, to be sure, is impossi- 
ble, because it is contrary to the known reality. The second is not 
impossible. True, we cannot imagine space as complete ; we cannot 
imagine all space, space as a ivhole, because this, too, is contrary to the 
reality. But we know space as infinite ; that is, we know space, and 
know not only that wo cannot limit it, but positively that there is no 
limit to it. We know what power is. We do not lose our notion of 
power when we predicate infinitude of it. It is power still, but power 
incapable of limit. 
1 Essays, iii. 293 seq. 



THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 89 

cause of changes in general, is the final disclosure of 
analysis." 1 In other words, the experience of conscious 
causal agency in ourselves gives us the idea of "force." 
This is "the original datum of consciousness." This is 
all we know of force. Only as we are ourselves con- 
scious of power, do we know any thing of power in the 
universe. Now, Mr. Spencer chooses to name the ulti- 
mate reality " Force " — "the Absolute Force." He de- 
clares it to be inscrutable ; since the force which we are 
immediately conscious of is not persistent, is a relative. 
Yet he says that he means by it "the persistence of 
some cause which transcends our knowledge and concep- 
tion." Take away cause from the Absolute, and nothing 
is left ; and the only cause of which we have any idea 
is our own conscious activity. If Mr. Spencer would 
make the causal idea, as thus derived, the symbol for 
the interpretation of "changes in general," he would 
be a Theist. By deftly resolving cause into the physical 
idea of "force," he gives to his system a Pantheistic 
character. It is only by converting the a priori idea of 
cause, as given in consciousness, into a " force " which 
we "cannot form any idea of," and which he has no 
warrant for assuming, that he avoids Theism. 2 

Let us observe the consequences of holding the Ag- 
nostic rigidly to his own principles. 

According to Mr. Spencer's numerous and explicit 
avowals, all of our conceptions and language respecting 
nature are vitiated by the same anthropomorphism 
which he finds in the ascribing of personality to God. 
All science is made out to be a mental picture to which 
there is no likeness in realities outside of conscious- 

1 First Principles, p. 169. 

2 There are clear remarks of Mr. A. M. Fairbairn on this point, Con- 
temporary Review, vol. xl. p. 214. 



90 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

ness. To speak of matter as impenetrable, to make 
statements respecting an imponderable ether, molecular 
movements, atoms, even respecting space, time, motion, 
cause, force, is to talk in figures, without the least knowl- 
edge of the realities denoted by them. It is not a case 
where a symbol is adopted to signify known reality. 
We cannot compare the reality with the symbol or 
notion, because of the reality we have not the faintest 
knowledge. When we speak, for example, of the vibra- 
tions of the air, we have not the least knowledge either 
of what the air is, or of what vibrations are. We are 
merely giving name to an unknown cause of mental 
states ; but even of cause itself, predicated of the object 
in itself, and of what is meant by its agency in giving 
rise to effects in us, we are as ignorant as a blind man 
of colors. Mr. Spencer says that matter is probably 
composed of ultimate, homogeneous units. 1 He appears, 
in various places, to think well of the atomic theory 
of matter. But if he is speaking of matter as it is, 
independently of our sensations, he forgets, when he 
talks thus, the fundamental doctrine of his philosophy. 
He undertakes to tell us about realities, when he can- 
not consistently speak of aught but their algebraic sym- 
bols, or the phenomena of consciousness. The atomic 
theory of matter carries us as far into the unknown 
realm of ontology as the doctrine of the personality of 
the Absolute, or any other proposition embraced in 
Christian Theism. 

It is impossible for the Agnostic to limit his knowl- 
edge to experience, and to reject as unverified the im- 
plications of experience, without abandoning nearly all 
that he holds true. If he sticks to his principle, his 
creed will be a short one. Consciousness is confined to 
i Principles of Psychology, p. 157. 



THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 91 

the present moment. I am conscious of remembering 
an experience in the past. This consciousness as a 
present fact I cannot deny without a contradiction. 
But how do I know that the object of the recollec- 
tion — be it a thought, or feeling, or experience of any 
sort — ever had a reality ? How do I know any thing 
past, or that there is a past ? Now, memory is neces- 
sary to the comparison of sensations, to reasoning, to 
our whole mental life. Yet to believe in memory is to 
transcend experience. I have certain sensations which 
I attribute collectively to a cause named my "body." 
Like sensations lead me to recognize the existence of 
other bodies like my own. But how do I know that 
there is consciousness within these bodies? How do I 
know that my fellow-men whom I see about me have 
minds like my own ? The senses cannot perceive the 
intelligence of the friends about me. I infer that they 
are intelligent, but in this inference I transcend expe- 
rience. Experience reduced to its exact terms, accord- 
ing to the methods of Agnosticism, is confined to the 
present feeling, — the feeling of the transient moment. 
When the Agnostic goes beyond this, when he infers 
that what is remembered was once presented in con- 
sciousness, that his fellow-men are thinking beings, and 
not mindless puppets, that any intelligent beings exist 
outside of himself, he transcends experience. If he 
were to predicate intelligence of God, he would be 
guilty of no graver assumption than when he ascribes 
intelligence to the fellow-men whom he sees moving 
about, and with whom he is conversing. 

The Spencerian identification of subject and object, 
mind and matter, is illusive and groundless. They are 
declared to be " the subjective and objective faces of 
the same thing." They are said to be " the opposite 



92 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

faces " of one reality. Sometimes they are spoken of 
as its " inner and outer side." On the one side, we are 
told, there are nerve-waves ; on the other there are feel- 
ings. What is the fact, or the reality, of which these 
two are " faces " or " sides " ? From much of the lan- 
guage which Mr. Spencer uses — it might be said, from 
the general drift of his remarks — the impression would 
be gained, that the reality is material, and that feeling 
is the mere concomitant or effect. But this theorem he 
disavows. He even says, that, as between idealism and 
materialism, the former is to be preferred. 1 More, he 
tells us, can be alleged for it than for the opposite 
theory. The nerve-movement is phenomenal not less 
than the feeling. The two are co-ordinate. The fact 
or the reality is to be distinguished from both. As phe- 
nomena, there are two. There are two facts, and these 
two are the only realities accessible to us. The sup- 
posed power, or thing in itself, is behind, and is abso- 
lutely hidden. The difference between the ego and the 
non-ego " transcends all other differences." A unit of 
motion and a unit of feeling have nothing in common. 
" Belief in the reality of self," it is confessed by Mr. 
Spencer, is " a belief which no hypothesis enables us to 
escape." 2 It is impossible, he proceeds to argue, that 
the impressions and ideas " which constitute conscious- 
ness " can be thought to be the only existences : this is 
"really unthinkable." If there is an impression, there 
is " something impressed." The sceptic must hold that 
the ideas and impressions into which he has decomposed 
consciousness are his ideas and impressions. Moreover, 
if he has an impression of his personal existence, why 
reject this impression alone as unreal? The belief in 
one's personal existence, Mr. Spencer assures us, is 

1 Principles of Psychology, i. 159. 2 First Principles, pp. 64, 65. 



THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 93 

" unavoidable ; " it is indorsed by " the assent of man- 
kind at large ; " it is indorsed, too, by the " suicide of 
the sceptical argument against it." Yet the surprising 
declaration is added, that " reason rejects " this belief. 
Reason rejects a belief which it is impossible to aban- 
don, and against which the adverse reasoning of the 
doubter shatters itself in pieces. On what ground is 
this strange conclusion reached ? Why, " the cognition 
of self," it is asserted, is negatived by the laws of 
thought. The condition of thought is the antithesis of 
subject and object. Hence the mental act in which 
self is known implies " a perceiving subject and a per- 
ceived object." If it is the true self that thinks, what 
other self can it be that is thought of ? If subject and 
object are one and the same, thought is annihilated. 

If the two factors of consciousness, the ego and the 
non-ego, are irreducible, the reality of self is the natural 
inference. The " unavoidable " belief that self is a 
reality is still further confirmed by the absolute impos- 
sibility of thinking without attributing the act to self. 

But let us look at the psychological difficulty which 
moves Mr. Spencer instantly to lay down his arms, and 
surrender an " unavoidable " belief. In every mental 
act there is an implicit consciousness of self, whether the 
object is a thing external or a mental affection. From 
this cognition of self there is no escape. Suppose, now, 
that self is the direct object. To know is to distin- 
guish an object from other things, and from the know- 
ing subject. When self is the object, this distinguishing 
activity is exerted by the subject, while the object is 
self, distinguished alike from other things and from the 
distinguishing subject. The subject distinguishes, the 
object differs in being distinguished or discerned. Yet 
both subject and object, notwithstanding this formal 



94 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

distinction, are known in consciousness as identical. 
If, again, self as the subject of this activity is made the 
object, then it is to one form of activity, distinguished 
in thought from the agent, that attention is directed, 
while at the same time there is a consciousness that the 
distinction of the agent from the power or function is 
in thought merely, not in reality. That self-conscious- 
ness is a fact, every one can convince himself by look- 
ing within. No psychological objection, were it much 
more solid than the oen just noticed, could avail against 
an experience of the fact. We are fortunately not 
called upon by logic to part with an " unavoidable " 
belief. 1 

To explain the complex operations of the intellect 
as due to a combination of units of sensation is a task 
sufficiently arduous. But, when it comes to the. will 
and the moral feelings, the difficulties increase. The 
illusive idea of freedom, as was explained above, is sup- 
posed by Mr. Spencer to spring from the supposition 
that " the ego is something more than the aggregate 
of feelings and ideas, actual and nascent, which then 
exists," — exists at the moment of action. The mistake 
is made of thinking that the ego is any thing but " the 
entire group of psychical states which constituted the 
action " supposed to be free. 2 Yet the same writer 
elsewhere, and with truth, asserts that this idea of the 
ego is " verbally intelligible, but really unthinkable." 3 

Mr. Spencer's system has been correctly described 
by Mansel as a union of the Positivist doctrine, that we 
know only the relations of phenomena, with the Pan- 
theist assumption of the name of God to denote the 

1 This objection of Spencer is a part of Herbart's system. It is con- 
futed by Ulrici, Gott u. der Mensch, pp. 321, 322. 

2 Principles of Psychology, i. 500, 501. 3 First Principles, p. 64. 






THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 95 

substance or power which lies beyond phenomena. 1 
The doctrine, which is so essential in the system, that 
mental phenomena emerge from nervous organism when 
it reaches a certain point of development, is material- 
istic. Motion, heat, light, chemical affinity, Mr. Spen- 
cer holds, are transformable into sensation, emotion, 
thought. He holds that no idea or feeling arises save 
as a result of some physical force expended in produ- 
cing it. " How this metamorphosis takes place ; how 
a force existing as motion, heat, or light, can become a 
mode of consciousness ; how it is possible for the forces 
liberated by chemical changes in the brain to give rise 
to emotion, — these are mysteries which it is impossible 
to fathom." 2 They are mysteries which ought to shake 
the writer's faith in the assumed fact which creates 
them. If forces liberated by chemical action produce 
thought, then thought, by the law of conservation, 
must exert the force thus absorbed by it. This makes 
thought a link in the chain of causes, giving to it an 
agency which the theory denies it to possess. If chem 
ical action does not " give rise to " thought, by produ- 
cing it, then it can only be an occasional cause, and the 
efficient cause of thought is left untold. This evolu 
tion of mind from matter as the prius, even though 
matter be defined as a mode of "the Unknowable," and 
the subjection of mental phenomena to material laws, 
stamp the system as essentially materialistic. The argu- 
ments which confute materialism are applicable to it. 

Underneath modern discussions on the grounds of 
religious belief is the fundamental question as to the 
reality of human knowledge. The doctrine of the rela- 
tivity of knowledge has been made one of the chief 

1 The Philosophy of the Conditioned, p. 40. 

2 First Principles, 2d ed., p. 217. 



96 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF 

props of scepticism and atheism. If the proposition 
that knowledge is relative, simply means that we can 
know only through the organ of knowledge, it is a tru- 
ism. We can know nothing of the universe as a whole, 
or of any thing in it, beyond what the knowing agent 
by its constitution is capable of discerning. The im- 
portant question is, whether things are known as they 
are, or whether they undergo a metamorphosis, con- 
verting them into things unlike themselves, by being 
brought into contact with the perceiving and thinking 
subject. It is tantamount to the question whether our 
mental constitution is, or is not, an instrument for 
perceiving truth. The idealist would explain all the 
objects of knowledge as modifications of the thinking 
subject. Knowledge is thus made an inward process, 
having no real counterpart in a world without. Nothing 
is known, nothing exists, beyond this internal process. 
Others, who stop short of idealism, attribute to the 
mind such a transforming work upon the objects fur- 
nished it, or acting upon it from without, that their 
nature is veiled from discovery. The mirror of con- 
sciousness is so made that things reflected in it may, 
for aught we can say, lose all resemblance to things in 
themselves. That which is true of sense-perception, at 
least as regards the secondarjr qualities, color, flavor, 
etc., — which are proximately affections of man's physi- 
cal organism, — is assumed to be true of all things and 
of their relations. This is a denial of the reality of 
knowledge in the sense in which the terms are taken by 
the common sense of mankind. The doctrine was pro- 
pounded in the maxim of the sophist Protagoras, that 
"man is the measure of all things." 

Locke made sensation the ultimate source of knowl- 
edge. Berkeley withstood materialism by making sen- 



THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 97 

sations to be affections of the spirit, ideas impressed by 
the will of God, acting by uniform rule. Hume, from 
the premises of Locke, resolved our knowledge into sen- 
sations, which combine in certain orders of sequence, 
through custom, of which no explanation is to be given. 
Customary association gives rise to the delusive notion 
of necessary ideas, — such as cause and effect, substance, 
power, the ego, etc. Reid, through the doctrine of 
common sense, rescued rational intuitions and human 
knowledge, which is built on them, from the gulf of 
scepticism. There is another source of knowledge, a 
subjective source, possessed of a self-verifying authority. 
Kant performed a like service by demonstrating that 
space and time, and the ideas of cause, substance, etc., 
the concepts or categories of the understanding, are 
not the product of sense-perception. They are neces- 
sary and universal ; not the product, but the condition, of 
sense-perception. They are presupposed in our percep- 
tions and judgments. Moreover, Kant showed that there 
are ideas of reason. The mind is impelled to unify the 
concepts of the understanding by which it conceives, 
classifies, and connects the objects of knowledge. These 
ideas are of the world as a totality, embracing all phe- 
nomena, the ego or personal subject, and God, the un- 
conditioned ground of all possible existences. 

But Kant founded a scepticism of a peculiar sort. 
Space, time, and the categories, cause, substance, and 
the like, he made to be purely subjective, characteris- 
tics of the thinker, and not of the thing. They reveal 
to us, not things in themselves, but rather the hidden 
mechanism of thought. Of the thing itself, the object 
of perception, we only know its existence. Even this 
we cannot affirm of the ego, which is not presented 
in sense-perception. The same exclusively subjective 



98 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

validity belongs to the other ideas of reason. They 
signify a tentative effort which is never complete. They 
designate a nisus which is never realized. Since the 
concepts of the understanding are rules for forming and 
ordering the materials furnished in sense-perception, 
they cannot be applied to any thing super-sensible. The 
attempt to do so lands us in logical contradictions, or 
antinomies, which is an additional proof that we are 
guilty of an illegitimate procedure. 

From the consequences of this organized scepticism, 
the natural as well as actual outcome of which was the 
systems of Pantheistic idealism, Kant delivered himself 
by his doctrine of the Practical Reason. He called 
attention to another department of our nature. We are 
conscious of a moral law, an imperative mandate, dis- 
tinguished from the desires, and elevated above them. 
This implies, and compels us to acknowledge, the free- 
dom of the will, and our own personality which is in- 
volved in it. Knowing that we are made for morality, 
and also for happiness, or that these are the ends towards 
which the constitution of our nature points, we must 
assume that there is a God by whose government these 
ends are made to meet, and are reconciled in a future 
life. God, free-will, and immortality are thus verified 
to us on practical grounds. Religion is the recognition 
of the moral law as a divine command. Religion and 
ethics are thus identified. Love, the contents of the 
law, is ignored, or retreats into the background. Rec- 
titude in its abstract quality, or as an imperative man- 
date, is the sum of virtue. 

The doctrine of the relativity of knowledge is present- 
ed by Sir William Hamilton in a form somewhat dif- 
ferent from the Kantian theory. The Infinite and the 
Absolute — existence unconditionally unlimited, and 



THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES. 99 

existence unconditionally limited — are neither of them 
conceivable. For example, we cannot conceive of infi- 
nite space, or of space so small that it cannot be divid- 
ed: we cannot conceive of infinite increase or infinite 
division. Positive thought is of things limited or con- 
ditioned. The object is limited by its contrast with 
other things and by its relation to the subject. Only 
as thus limited can it be an object of knowledge. The 
object in sense-perception is a phenomenon of the non- 
ego : the non-ego is a reality, but is not known as it is 
in itself. Thought is shut up between two inaccessible 
extremes. But although each is inconceivable, yet, 
since they are contradictories, one or the other must 
be accepted. For example, space must be either infi- 
nite, or bounded by ultimate limits. An es'sential point 
in Hamilton's doctrine is the distinction between con- 
ception and belief. The two are not co-extensive. 
That may be an object of belief which is not a concept. 
This distinction is elucidated by Mansel, who says, 
" We may believe that a thing is, without being able 
to conceive how it is." " I believe in an infinite God ; 
i.e., I believe that God is infinite. I believe that the 
attributes which I ascribe to God exist in him in an 
infinite degree. Now, to believe this proposition, I must 
be conscious of its meaning ; but I am not therefore 
conscious of the infinite God as an object of concep- 
tion ; for this would require, further, an apprehension 
of the manner in which these infinite attributes co- 
exist so as to form one object." 1 But in this case do 
I not know the meaning of "infinite"? Does it not 
signify more than the absence of imaginable limit, a 
mere negation of power in me ? Does it not include 
the positive idea, that there is no limit? In the case 
1 The Philosophy of the Conditioned, pp. 127, 129, cf. p. 18 seq. 



100 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

of opposite inconceivables, extraneous considerations, 
according to Hamilton, determine which ought to be 
believed. Both necessity and freedom are inconceiva- 
ble, since one involves an endless series, the other a 
new commencement; but moral feeling — self-approba- 
tion, remorse, the consciousness of obligation — oblige 
us to believe in freedom, although we cannot conceive 
of it as possible. The fact is an object of thought, and 
so far intelligible, but not the quo modo. This dilemma 
in which we are placed, where we have to choose 
between two contradictory inconceivables, does not 
imply that our reason is false, but that it is weak, or 
limited in its range. When we attempt to conceive of 
the Infinite and the Absolute, we wade beyond our 
depth. They are terms signifying, not thought, but the 
negation of thought. Our belief in the existence of 
God and in his perfection rests on the suggestions 
and demands of our moral nature. In this general 
view Hamilton was in accord with Kant. Mr. Mansel 
differed from Sir William Hamilton in holding that we 
have an intuition of the ego as an entity, and in holding 
that the idea of cause is a positive notion, and not a 
mere inability to conceive of a new beginning, or of 
an addition to the sum of existence. But Mr. Mansel 
applied the doctrine of relativity to our knowledge of 
God, which was thus made to be only anthropopathic, 
approximative, symbolic ; and he founded our belief in 
God ultimately on conscience and the emotions. 

Under the auspices of James Mill, and of his son 
John Stuart Mill, the philosophical speculations of 
Hume were revived. Intuitions are affirmed to be em- 
pirical in their origin. They are impressions, which 
through the medium of sense-perception, and under 
the laws of association, stamp themselves upon us in 



THE PRINCIPAL ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES 101 

early childhood, and thus wear the semblance of a priori 
ideas. But this is only a semblance. There are, possi- 
bly, regions in the universe where two and two make 
five. Causation is nothing but uniformity of sequence. 
The Positivist theory of J. S. Mill led him to the con- 
clusion that matter is only " the permanent possibility 
of sensations ; " but all these groups of possibilities 
which constitute matter are states of the ego. And 
Mill was only prevented from concluding that the mind 
is nothing but a bundle of sensations by the intractable 
facts of memory. On his view of mind and matter, it 
is impossible to see how a man can know the existence 
of anybody but himself. He says that he does "not 
believe that the real externality to us of any thing 
except other minds is capable of proof." But as we 
become acquainted with the existence of other minds, 
only as we perceive their bodies, and since this percep- 
tion must be held to be, like all our perceptions of 
matter, only a group of sensations, we have no proof 
that such bodies exist. 

The Agnostic scheme of Herbert Spencer accords 
with the theory of Hume and Mill in tracing intuitions 
to an empirical source. But the experience which 
gives them being is not that of the individual, but 
of the race. Heredity furnishes the clew to the solu- 
tion of the problem of their emergence in the conscious- 
ness of the individual. He inherits the acquisitions of 
remote ancestors. Then the notion of energy is super- 
added to the Positivist creed. With it comes the pos- 
tulate of a primal Power, of which we are said to have 
an indefinite consciousness, or " the Unknowable," — 
the Pantheistic tenet grafted on Positivism. The 
doctrine of the relativity of knowledge is taken up 
from Hamilton and Mansel as the ground of nescience 



102 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

respecting realities as distinct from phenomena, and 
respecting God. The facts of conscience which have 
furnished to Kant and Hamilton, and to deep-thinking 
philosophers generally who have advocated the rela- 
tivity of knowledge, a foundation for belief in free-will 
and for faith in God, meet with no adequate recogni- 
tion. Little account is made of moral feeling, and its 
necessary postulates are discarded as fictions. 

The rescue of philosophy from its aberrations must 
begin in a full and consistent recognition of the reality 
of knowledge. Intuitions are the counterpart of reali- 
ties. The categories are objective : they are modes 
of existence as well as modes of knowledge. Distinct 
as mind and nature are, there is such an affinity in the 
constitution of both, and such an adaptation of each 
to each, that knowledge is not a bare product of 
subjective activity, but a reflex of reality. Dependent 
existences imply independent self-existent Being. The 
postulate of all causal connection discerned among 
finite things is the First Cause. From the will we 
derive our notion of causation. Among dependent 
existences the will is the only fountain of power of 
which we have any experience. It is natural to be- 
lieve that the First Cause is a Will. The First Cause 
is disclosed as personal in conscience, to which our 
wills are subject. The law as an imperative impulse to 
free action and as a pre-appointed end implies that the 
First Cause is Personal. Order and design in the world 
without — not found there merely, but instinctively 
sought there — corroborate the evidence of God, of 
whom we are implicitly conscious, and whose holy 
authority is manifest in conscience. 






CHAPTER IV. 

THE POSSIBILITY AND THE FUNCTION OF MIRACLES 
WITH A REVIEW OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S COM- 
MENTS ON HUME. 

Christianity, from its first promulgation, has pro- 
fessed to have a supernatural origin and sanction. It 
has claimed to have God for its author, and to be a 
revelation of him and by him. Nothing in history is 
more certain than that the apostles denied, and with 
all sincerity, that the religion which they were pro- 
claiming was the wOrk of man, or owed its being 
exclusively to natural causes, unmixed with divine 
intervention. That the Founder of Christianity pre- 
ceded them in propounding this claim admits of no 
question. 

At the same time, Christianity allows and asserts a 
prior revelation of God, made through the consciences 
of men, through the material creation, and through the 
moral order to be discerned in the course of history. 
The Scriptures in which Christianity is authoritatively 
set forth do not undervalue the natural revelation, how- 
ever misinterpreted, and practically ineffectual, they 
may declare it to be. Its comparative failure to accom- 
plish its end they attribute to the power of sin to dull 
the perceptions of mankind. Yet the discontent, self- 
accusation, and yearning for a lost birthright, which 
constitute a preparation to receive the new revelation, 



104 THE GROUNDS OF TIIEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

are pronounced the effect of the earlier revelation 
through nature and conscience. 

Nor is there any thing incongruous between the two 
revelations. If a miracle — for example, the healing 
of a man born blind — brings God vividly to view, it is 
not another God than he whose power is exerted in 
the natural growth of the eye, and in the cure of 
disease when it takes place by natural means. Christi- 
anity partly consists of a republication of truth respect- 
ing God and respecting human duties, — truth which 
the light of nature makes known, or would make 
known if reason were faithful to her function. To 
take a single instance — the obligation of veracity is 
more or less felt by men who have never been taught 
the gospel. There have been whole nations, like the 
ancient Persians, who have been celebrated for their 
abhorrence of falsehood. Even the forgiveness of inju- 
ries, though not so commonly inculcated or practised 
outside of the pale of Christianity, is not confined 
within this limit. Forbearance was enjoined by cer- 
tain heathen sages. Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca and 
Epictetus, are earnest in their laudation of this virtue. 
There is a large catalogue of particular duties — duties 
of the individual to himself, to the family, to the state, 
even to humanity at large — which were known to 
mankind, were to some extent defined, and more or 
less practised among men. The virtues of character 
which have shed lustre on individuals or communities 
that have lived in ignorance of Christianity are, to a 
large extent, identical with those which Christianity 
enjoins. The difference here is, that these duties appear 
in Christian teaching in a different setting : they are 
ingrafted on new motives, are connected with peculiar 
incentives to their performance ; and they come home 



POSSIBILITY AND FUNCTION OF MIRACLES. 105 

to the heart and conscience with a force of appeal, 
which, as long as they were disconnected with Chris- 
tianity, never belonged to them. Thus the obligation 
to forgive, when linked to the truth that God for 
Christ's sake has forgiven us, or as we find it expressed 
in the Sermon on the Mount and in the Lord's Prayer, 
is vastly aided in its fulfilment. Ethical justice and 
benevolence are placed in vital connection with reli- 
gion : the obligations of man to man are illumined, as 
well as re-enforced, by being seen in the light of the 
common relation of men to God, and of their united 
participation in an inestimable gift bestowed by him. 

But the essential part of Christianity is not contained 
in the doctrines which belong to it in common with 
natural religion, or in the ethical precepts, which, if not 
actually discerned, are still verifiable, by the light of 
nature. If we would understand what is signified by 
the Christian revelation, we must consider the end which 
Christianity aims at. This end is the restoration of men 
to communion with God. The purpose is to bring men 
out of the state of separation from God into the state 
of reconciliation and filial union to the Being in whom 
they live. The broken connection between God and 
man is to be re-established. God is to make such an 
approach to man as will place pardon and purification 
within his reach, and will found upon the earth a king- 
dom of righteousness and peace. 

In such an achievement mere doctrinal communica- 
tions are inadequate. The manifestation of God is 
primarily in act and deed. Christianity is an historical 
religion ; that is to say, its groundwork is in events and 
transactions on the stage of history in connection with 
which the supernatural agency of God is manifestly 
exerted, and the outcome of which is an objective 



106 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

salvation from sin. Indeed, the method of Revelation 
is pre-eminently historical. God manifests himself in 
events which evidently spring from a commingling of 
supernatural agency with natural causes. These are 
not isolated occurrences. They are connected with one 
another ; and they are of such a character as to awaken 
a living perception of those attributes of God which 
are fitted to attract to him, and to purify, those with 
whose lives this course of supernatural history is inti- 
mately concerned. A current of history is established, 
and carried forward in a channel marked out for it. A 
community is created, evidently owing its origin and 
preservation to supernatural power and guidance, and so 
ordered that in it true religion may be kept alive and 
perfected. The merciful intention of God to save men 
shines with an increasing brightness through that long 
course of historical development which attains its con- 
summation in the death and resurrection of Him who is 
the image, or complete manifestation, of God. When 
Stephen, the first martyr, stood up before the Jewish 
council to defend the Christian faith, he began his 
argument with referring to the separation of Abraham, 
by the call of God, from his kindred, and proceeded to 
describe the deliverance of the Israelites from bondage 
by Moses, whom God had supernaturally designated for 
this leadership, and at length came to the divine mis- 
sion and the rejection of the " Righteous One." Paul 
at Athens, having set forth the first truths of natural 
religion, asserted the resurrection of Jesus in proof of 
the commission given him of God to judge the world. 
Every one knows that the recital of facts formed every- 
where the basis of the preaching of the apostles. The 
same thing is true of the prophets of the Old Testa- 
ment. Connected with all rebuke and exhortation, 



POSSIBILITY AND FUNCTION OF MIRACLES. 107 

and with the songs of devotion, are references to the 
way in which God had made himself known by things 
done for the welfare of his people. The doctrinal part 
of Scripture rests upon an underlying foundation of 
facts. Doctrine sets forth the significance of that his 
tory in which, from age to age, the just and merciful 
God had manifested himself to men. 

When this view is taken of Revelation, it no longer 
wears the appearance of having sprung from an after- 
thought of the Creator. Revelation inheres essen- 
tially in phenomena which form an integral part of the 
history of mankind. That history is a connected whole. 
As such, Revelation is the realization of an eternal 
purpose in the divine mind. In this light it is regarded 
by the writers of the New Testament. To be sure, 
inasmuch as sin is no part of the creation, but is the 
perverse act of the creature, and since the consequences 
of sin in the natural order are thus brought in, it may 
be said with truth that redemption is the remedy of a 
disorder. It may be truly affirmed that Revelation, in 
the forms which it actually assumed, is made possible 
and necessary by the infraction of an ideal order. In 
this sense it may be called a provision for an emer- 
gency. It was, however, none the less pre-ordained. 
It entered into the original plan of human history, con- 
ditioned on the foreseen fact of sin, as that plan was 
formed from eternity by the Creator. The Christian 
believer finds in the purpose of redemption through 
Jesus Christ the only clew to the understanding of 
history in its entire compass. 

Miracles are thus seen to be, not appendages, but 
constitutive parts, of Revelation. It is in the deviation 
of nature from its ordinary course that the personal 
agency — the justice, the mercy, the benevolent pur- 



108 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

pose, of God — is revealed, and the deliverance of men 
from their ignorance, and wilful desertion of God, and 
from its penal consequences, is effected. Through the 
agency of God immediately and manifestly exerted at 
the proper junctures, the kingdom of God is introduced, 
and built up in its consecutive stages. Miracles, it is 
true, may be called " the credentials " of apostles. As 
such, they are auxiliaries in the first promulgation of 
Christianity. They procure a hearing and credence for 
the founders of the Church. They are a visible sanc- 
tion given by God to their teaching and work. But the 
primary office of miracles in connection with Revela- 
tion is that before defined. 

These views render it easy to point out the relation 
of miracles to the uniformities of nature. Were the 
vision not clouded, the regular sequences of nature, its 
wise and beneficent order, would discover its Author, 
and call out emotions of love and adoration. The de- 
parture of nature from its beaten path is required to 
impress on the minds of men the half-forgotten fact, that 
behind the forces of nature, even in its ordinary move- 
ment, is the will of God. What are natural laws? 
They are not a code super-imposed upon natural objects. 
They are a generalized statement of the way in which 
the objects of nature are observed to act and interact. 
Thus the miracle does not clash with natural laws. It 
is a modification in the effect due to a change in .the 
antecedents. If there is a new phenomenon, it is due 
to the interposition of an external cause. There is not 
a violation of the law of gravitation when a ball is 
thrown into the air. A force is counteracted and over- 
come by the interposition of a force that is superior. 
The forces of nature are, within limits, subject to the 
human will. The intervention of the human will gives 



POSSIBILITY AND FUNCTION OF MIRACLES. 109 

rise to phenomena which the forces of matter, independ- 
ently of the heterogeneous agent, would never produce. 
Yet such effects following upon volition are not prop- 
erly considered violations of law. Law describes the 
action of natural forces when that action is not modified 
and controlled by voluntary agency. If the efficiency 
of the divine will infinitely outstrips that of the will of 
man, still miracles are no more inconsistent with natural 
laws than is the lifting of a man's hand in obedience to 
a volition. 

The question whether the miracles described in the 
New Testament, by which it is alleged that Christianity 
was ushered into the world, actually occurred, is to be 
settled by an examination of the evidence. It is an his- 
torical question, and is to be determined by an applica- 
tion of the canons applicable to historical inquiry. The 
great sceptical philosopher of the last century displayed 
his ingenuity in an attempt to show that a miracle is 
from its very nature, and therefore under all circum- 
stances, incapable of proof. His argument has often 
been reviewed, and its fallacies have been repeatedly 
pointed out. It is only a late discussion of Hume's 
argument by Professor Huxley that prompts us to 
subject it anew to a brief examination. 

It will be remembered that Hume founds our belief 
in testimony solely on experience. " The reason," he 
says, " why we place any credit in witnesses and histo- 
rians is not derived from any connection which we per- 
ceive a priori between testimony and reality, but because 
we are accustomed to find a conformity between them." 
This is far from being a correct account of the origin 
of our belief in testimony. Custom is not the source of 
credence. The truth is, that we instinctively give credit 
to what is told us ; that is, we assume that the facts 



110 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

accord with testimony. Experience serves to modify 
this natural expectation, and we learn to give or with- 
hold credence according to circumstances. The circum- 
stance which determines us to believe or disbelieve is 
our conviction respecting the capacity of the witness for 
ascertaining the truth on the subject of his narration, 
and respecting his honesty. If we are persuaded that 
he could not have been deceived, and that he is truthful, 
we believe his story. No doubt one thing which helps 
to determine his title to credit is the probability or 
improbability of the occurrences related. The circum- 
stance that such occurrences have never taken place be- 
fore, or are " contrary to experience " in Hume's sense 
of the phrase, does not of necessity destroy the credi- 
bility of testimony to them. An event is not rendered 
incapable of proof because it occurs, if it occurs at all, 
for the first time. Unless it can be shown to be impossi- 
ble, or incredible on some other account than because it 
is an unexampled event, it is capable of being proved by 
witnesses. Hume is not justified in assuming that mira- 
cles are " contrary to experience," as he defines this term. 
This is the very question in dispute. The evidence for 
the affirmative, as Mill has correctly stated, is dimin- 
ished in force by whatever weight belongs to the evi- 
dence that certain miracles have taken place. The gist 
of Hume's argumentation is contained in this remark : 
" Let us suppose that the fact which the} r [the witnesses] 
affirm, instead of being only marvellous, is really miracu- 
lous ; and suppose, also, that the testimony, considered 
apart and in itself, amounts to an entire proof: in that 
case, there is proof against proof, of which the strongest 
must prevail," etc. At the best, according to Hume, in 
every instance where a miracle is alleged, proof balances 
proof. One flaw in this argument has just been pointed 



POSSIBILITY AND FUNCTION OF MIRACLES. Ill 

out. The fundamental fallacy of this reasoning in in 
the premises, which base belief on naked " experience " 
divorced from all rational expectations drawn from any 
other source. The argument proceeds on the assump- 
tion that a miracle is just as likely to occur in one place 
as in another; that a miracle whereby the marks of 
truthfulness are transformed into a mask of error and 
falsehood is as likely to occur, as (for example) the 
healing of a blind man by a touch of the hand. This 
might be so if the Power that governs the world 
were destitute of moral attributes. " The presumption 
against miracles as mere physical phenomena is rebut- 
ted by the presumption in favor of miracles as related 
to infinite benevolence." * Hume's argument is valid 
only on the theory of Atheism. 

We give credit to our own senses when we have 
taken the requisite pains to test the accuracy of the 
observations made by them, and have convinced our- 
selves that these organs are in a sound and healthy 
condition. If a number of witnesses, in whose careful- 
ness and honesty we have entire confidence, testify to 
phenomena which they declare that they have wit- 
nessed, we lend, and are bound to lend, to their testi- 
mony the same credence which we give to our own eyes 
and ears. Whether the phenomena are of natural or 
supernatural origin is a subsequent question, to be de- 
cided upon a consideration of all the circumstances. 

Professor Huxley objects to Hume's definition of a 
miracle as a violation of the order of nature, " because 
all we know of the order of nature is derived from 
our observation of the course of events of which the 
so-called miracle is a part." 2 The laws of nature, he 

1 Professor E. A. Park, Smith's Dictionary of the Bihlo, iii. 1965. 

2 Huxley's Hume, p. 131. 



112 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

adds, " are necessarily based on incomplete knowledge, 
and are to be held only as grounds of a more or less 
justifiable expectation." He reduces Hume's doctrine, 
so far as it is tenable, to the canon, — " the more a 
statement of fact conflicts with previous experience, the 
more complete must be the evidence which is to justify 
us in believing it." By "more complete" evidence he 
apparently means evidence greater in amount, and tested 
by a more searching scrutiny. One of the examples 
which is given is the alleged existence of a centaur. 
The possibility of a centaur, Professor Huxley is far 
from denying, contrary as the existence of such an ani- 
mal would be to those " generalizations of our present 
experience which we are pleased to call the laws of 
nature." Professor Huxley does not deny that such 
events as the conversion of water into wine, and the 
raising of a dead man to life, are within the limits of 
possibility. Being, for aught we can say, possible, we 
can conceive evidence to exist of such an amount and 
character as to place them beyond reasonable doubt. 
Wherein is Professor Huxley's position on this ques- 
tion faulty? He is right in requiring that no link shall 
be wanting in the chain of proof. He is right in de- 
manding that a mere " coincidence " shall not be taken 
for an efficacious exertion of power. It is certainly 
possible that a man apparently dead should awake si- 
multaneously with a command to arise. If the person 
who uttered the command knew that the death was 
only apparent, the awakening would be easily explained. 
If he did not know it, and if the sleep were a swoon 
where the sense of hearing is suspended, it is still pos- 
sible that the recovery of consciousness might occur at 
the moment when the injunction to arise was spoken. 
It would be, to be sure, a startling coincidence ; yet it 



POSSIBILITY AND FUNCTION OF MIRACLES. 113 

might be nothing more. But, if there were decisive 
reason to conclude that the man was dead, then his 
awakening at the command of another does not admit 
of being explained by natural causes. The conjunction 
of the return of life and the direction to awake cannot 
be considered a mere coincidence. If other events of 
the same character take place, where the moral honesty 
of all the persons concerned, and other circumstances, 
exclude mistake as to the facts, the proof of miracles 
is complete and overwhelming. Canon Mozley says, — 

" The evidential function of a miracle is based upon the com- 
mon argument of design as proved by coincidence. The greatest 
marvel or interruption of the order of nature occurring by itself, 
as the' very consequence of being connected with nothing, proves 
nothing. But, if it takes place in connection with the word or act 
of a person, that coincidence proves design in the marvel, and 
makes it a miracle; and, if that person professes to report a 
message or revelation from Heaven, the coincidence again of the 
miracle with the professed message of God proves design on 
the part of God to warrant and authorize the message." 1 

It is plain that if events of the kind referred to, 
which cannot be due to mere coincidence, occur, they 
call for no revisal of our conception of " the order of 
nature," if by this is meant that material forces pre- 
viously unknown are to be assumed to exist in order 
to account for them. Such phenomena, it is obvious, 
might occur as would render the materialistic explana- 
tion quite irrational. The work done might so far sur- 
pass the power of the natural means employed, that 
the ascription of it to a material agency would be 
absurd. Or, if the supposition of an occult material 
agency hitherto undiscovered were tenable, we should 
be driven to the conclusion that the person who had 

1 Bampton Lectures, pp. 5, 6. 



114 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

become aware of it, and was thus able to give the 
signal for the occurrence of the phenomena, was pos- 
sessed of supernatural knowledge ; and then we should 
have, if not a miracle of power, a miracle of knowledge. 
The answer to Professor Huxley, then, is, that the 
circumstances of an alleged miracle may be such as to 
exclude the supposition, either that there is a remark- 
able coincidence merely, or that the order of nature — 
the natural system — is utterly different from what 
has been previously observed. The circumstances may 
be such that the only reasonable conclusion is the 
hypothesis of divine intervention. 

Professor Huxley, like Hume, treats the miracle as 
an isolated event. He looks at it exclusively from the 
point of view of a naturalist, as if material nature were 
known to be the sum of all being and the repository 
of all force. He shuts his eyes to all evidence in its 
favor which it is possible to derive from its ostensible 
design and use and from the circumstances surround- 
ing it. He shuts his eyes to the truth, and even to the 
possible truth, of the being of God. Like Hume, he 
contemplates the miracle as an isolated marvel. He 
confines his attention to a single quality of the event, 
— its unusual character, or to the fact that it is without 
a precedent. This method of regarding historical oc- 
currences would give an air of improbability to innu- 
merable events that are known to have taken place. 
If we are told that the enlightened rulers of a nation 
on a certain day deliberately set fire to their capital, 
and consumed its palaces and treasures in the flames, 
the narrative would excite the utmost surprise, if not 
incredulity. But incredulity vanishes when it is add- 
ed that the capital was Moscow, and that it was held 
by an invading army which Russians were willing to 



POSSIBILITY AND FUNCTION OF MIRACLES. 115 

make every sacrifice to destroy. Extraordinary actions, 
whether beneficent or destructive, may fail to obtain, 
or even to deserve, credence, until the motives of the 
actors, and the occasions that led to them, are brought 
to light. The fact of the Moscow fire is not disproved 
by showing that it could not have kindled itself. The 
method of spontaneous combustion is not the only pos- 
sible method of accounting for such an event. Yet this 
assumption fairly describes Professor Huxley's philoso- 
phy on the subject before us. 

Ignoring supernatural agency altogether, Professor 
Huxley is obliged to ascribe miracles, on the supposi- 
tion that they occur, to natural causes, and thus to 
make them at variance with the constitution of nature 
as at present understood. They are events parallel to 
the discovery of a centaur. This is an entirety gratui- 
tous supposition. A miracle does not disturb our con- 
ception of the system of nature. On the contrary, if 
there were not a system of nature, there could not be 
a miracle, or, rather, all phenomena would be alike 
miraculous. A miracle, we repeat, being the act of 
God, does not compel us to alter our conception of the 
constitution of nature ; for natural forces, or second 
causes, remain just what they were, and the method of 
their action is unchanged. 

The " order of nature " is an ambiguous phrase. It 
may mean that arrangement, or mutual adjustment of 
parts, which constitutes the harmony of nature. The 
" order of nature, in the sense of harmony," as Mozley 
observes, " is not disturbed by a miracle. The interrup- 
tion of a train of relations, in one instance, leaves them 
standing in every other; i.e., leaves the system, as such, 
untouched." 2 To this it may be added, that a miracle 

1 Bampton Lectures, p. 43. 



116 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

is not inharmonious with the comprehensive system 
which is established and maintained by the Author of 
nature, and in which nature is. but a single department. 
By the " order of nature " is sometimes signified the 
stated manner of the recurrence of physical phenomena. 
On this order rests the expectation that things will be 
in the future as they have been in the past, and the 
belief that they have been as they now are. This belief 
and expectation, though natural, and, we may say, in- 
stinctive, do not partake in the least of the character 
of necessary truth. The habitual expectation that the 
"order of nature," embracing the sequences of phe- 
nomena which usually pass under our observation, will 
be subject to no interruption in the future, is capable 
of being subverted whenever proof is furnished to the 
contrary. The same is true as to the course of things 
in the past. The principles of Theism bring to view the 
cause which is adequate to produce such an interrup- 
tion. The moral condition and exigencies of mankind 
constitute a sufficient motive for the exertion of this 
power by the merciful Being to whom it belongs. The 
characteristics of Christianity, apart from the alleged 
miracles connected with it, predispose the mind to give 
credit to the testimony on which these miracles rest. 

The relation of miracles to the internal proof of di- 
vine revelation merits more particular attention. In 
the last century it was the evidence of miracles which 
the defenders of Christianity principally relied on. The 
work of Paley is constructed on this basis. The argu- 
ment for miracles is placed by him in the foreground ; 
the testimony in behalf of them is set forth with ad- 
mirable clearness and vigor, and objections are parried 
with much skill. The internal evidence takes a subor- 



POSSIBILITY AND FUNCTION OF MIRACLES. 117 

dinate place. This whole method of presenting the 
case has been regarded in later times with misgivings 
and opposition. Coleridge may be mentioned as one 
of its ablest censors. The contents of Christianity as 
a system of truth, and the transcendent excellence ot 
Christ, have been considered the main evidence of the 
supernatural origin of the gospel. The old method has 
not been without conspicuous representatives, of whom 
the late Canon Mozley is one of the most notable. But, 
on the whole, it is upon the internal argument, in its 
various branches, that the main stress has been laid in 
recent days in the conflict with doubt and disbelief. In 
Germany, Schleiermacher, whose profound appreciation 
of the character of Jesus is the key-note in his system, 
held that a belief in miracles is not directly involved in 
the faith of a Christian ; although the denial of miracles 
is evidently destructive, as implying such a distrust of 
the capacity or integrity of the apostles as would invali- 
date all their testimony respecting Christ, and thus 
prevent us from gaining an authentic impression of his 
person and character. 1 Rothe, who was a firm believer 
in the miracles, as actual historical occurrences, never- 
theless maintains that the acceptance of them is not 
indispensable to the attainment of the benefits of the 
gospel. They were, in point of fact, essential to the 
introduction of Christianity into the world : the rejec- 
tion of them is unphilosophical, and contrary to the 
conclusion warranted by historical evidence. But now 
that Christ is known, and Christianity is introduced as 
a working power into history, it is possible for those 
who doubt about the miracles to receive him in faith, 
and through him to enter into communion with God. 2 
There can be no question, that, at the present day, 

i Christl. Glaube, vol. ii. p. 88. 2 Zur Dogiuatik, p.lll. 



118 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 



minds which tire disquieted by doubt, or are more or 
less disinclined to believe in revelation, should first give 
heed to the internal evidence. It is not by witnesses 
to miracles, even if they stood before us, that scepticism 
is overcome, where there is an absence of any living 
discernment of the peculiarity of the gospel and of the 
perfection of its Founder. How can a greater effect be 
expected from miracles alleged to have taken place at 
a remote date, be the proofs what they may, than the 
same miracles produced upon those in whose presence 
they were wrought ? Those who disparage the internal 
evidence, and place their reliance on the argument from 
miracles, forget the declaration of Christ himself, that 
there are moods of disbelief which the resurrection 
of a man from the dead, under their own observation, 
would not dispel. They forget the attitude of many 
who had the highest possible proof of an external nature 
that miracles were done by him and by the apostles. 
Moreover, they fail to consider, that, for the establish- 
ment of miracles as matters of fact, something more is 
required than a scrutiny such as would avail for the 
proof of ordinary occurrences. It is manifest that all 
those characteristics of Christ and of Christianity which 
predispose us to attribute it to a miraculous origin are 
of weight as proof of the particular miracles said to have 
taken place in connection with it. 

At the same time, miracles, and the proof of miracles 
from testimony, cannot be spared. When the peculiarr 
ities which distinguished Christianity from all other 
religions have impressed our minds, when the charac- 
ter of Christ in its unique and supernal quality has 
risen before us in its full attractive power, and when, 
from these influences, we are almost persuaded, at least 
not a little inclined, to believe in the gospel as a revela- 



POSSIBILITY AND FUNCTION OF MIRACLES. 119 

tion of God, we crave some attestation of an objective 
character. We naturally expect, that, if all this be 
really upon a plane above nature, there will be some 
explicit sign and attestation of the fact. Such attesta- 
tion being wanting, the question recurs whether there 
may not be, after all, some occult power of nature to 
which the moral phenomena of Christianity might be 
traced. Can we be sure that we are not still among 
second causes alone, in contact with a human wisdom, 
which, however exalted, is still human, and mixed with 
error ? Are we certain that we have not here merely 
a flower hi the garden of nature, — a flower, perhaps, 
of consummate beauty and delicious fragrance, yet a 
product of the earth ? It is just at this point that the 
record of miracles comes in to satisfy a rational expec- 
tation, to give their full effect to other considerations 
where the suspicion of a subjective bias may intrude, 
and to corroborate a belief which needs a support of just 
this nature. The agency of God in connection with the 
origin of Christianity is manifested to the senses, as well 
as to the reason and the heart. Not simply a wisdom 
that is more than human, a virtue of which there is no 
parallel in human experience, a merciful, renovating in- 
fluence not referable to any creed or philosophy of man's 
device, make their appeal to the sense of the supernatu- 
ral and divine ; yet also, not disconnected from these 
supernatural tokens, but mingling with them, are mani- 
festations of a power exceeding that of nature, — a 
power equally characteristic of God, and identifying 
the Author of nature with the Being of whom Christ 
is the messenger. Strip the manifestation of this ingre- 
dient of power, and an element is lacking for its full 
effect. The other parts of the manifestation inspire a 
willingness to believe, a rational anticipation that the 



120 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

one missing element is associated with them. When 
this anticipation is verified by answering proof, the 
argument is complete. An inchoate faith rises into an 
assured confidence. 

The importance of the evidence for miracles, then, 
does not rest solely on the ground, that, if it be dis- 
credited, the value of the apostles' testimony respect- 
ing other aspects of the life of Christ is fatally weakened. 
The several proofs need the miracles as a complement 
in order to give them full efficacy, and to remove a diffi- 
culty which otherwise stands in the way of the convic- 
tion which they tend to create. Miracles, it may also be 
affirmed, are component parts of that gospel which is 
the object of belief. Not only are they parts, and not 
merely accessories, of the act of revelation, but they are 
comprehended within the work of deliverance through 
Christ, — the redemption which is the object of the 
Christian faith. This is evidently true of his resurrec- 
tion, in which his victory over sin was seen in its appro- 
priate fruit, and his victory over death was realized, 
— realized, as well as demonstrated to man. 

In fine, miracles are the complement of the internal 
evidence. The two sorts of proof lend support each 
to the other, and they conspire together to satisfy the 
candid inquirer that Christianity is of supernatural 
origin. 



CHAPTER V. 

CHRIST'S CONSCIOUSNESS OF A SUPERNATURAL CALL- 
ING VERIFIED BY HIS SINLESS CHARACTER. 

Writers on the evidences of Christianity, after 
some introductory observations on natural theology, 
generally take up at once the subject of the genuine- 
ness and credibility of the Gospels, for the obvious 
reason that in these books, if anywhere, is preserved 
the testimony to the facts connected with the life of 
Jesus. There are reasons, however, which have special 
force at present, why this leading topic may well be 
deferred to a somewhat later stage of the discussion. 
Independently of differences of opinion respecting the 
authorship and date of the New-Testament narratives, 
there are not wanting grounds for believing the essen- 
tial facts which form the ground-work of the Christian 
faith. It is important to remember, that, besides these 
books, there exist other memorials, written and unwrit- 
ten, of the events with which we are concerned. We 
have Paul's Epistles, — the most prominent of which 
are not contested even by the sceptically disposed, — 
the oldest of which, the first to the Thessalonians, was 
written at Corinth as early as the year 53. But, more 
than this, there are cogent proofs, and there are strong 
probabilities, which may be gathered from known and 
conceded consequences of the life of Jesus among men. 
We can reason backwards. Even a cursory glance at 



122 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

Christianity in the course of its acknowledged history, 
and as an existing phenomenon standing before the eyes 
of all, is enough to convince everybody that something 
very weighty and momentous took place in Palestine 
in connection with the short career of Jesus. There 
followed, for example, indisputably, the preaching, the 
character, the martyrdom, of the apostles. The church 
started into being. The composition of the Gospels 
themselves, whenever and by whomsoever it took place, 
was an effect traceable ultimately to the life of Jesus. 
How came they to be written? How did what they 
relate of him come to be believed? How came miracles 
to be attributed to him, and not to John the Baptist 
and to Palestinian rabbis of the time ? Effects imply 
adequate causes. A pool of water in the street may 
be explained by a summer shower, but not so the Gulf 
Stream. Effects imply such causes as are adapted to 
produce them. The results of a movement disclose its 
nature. When we are confronted by historical phe- 
nomena, complex and far-reaching in their character, 
we find that no solution will hold which subtracts any 
thing essential from the actual historic antecedents. If 
we eliminate any of the conjoined causes, we discover 
that something in the aggregate effect is left unex- 
plained. Moreover, the elements that compose a state 
of things which gives rise to definite historical conse- 
quences are braided together. They do not easily allow 
themselves to be separated from one another. Pry out 
one stone from an arch, and the entire structure will 
fall. It is a proverb that a liar must have a long mem- 
ory. It is equally true that an historical critic exposes 
himself to peril whenever he ventures on the task of 
constructing a situation in the past, a combination of 
circumstances, materially diverse from the reality. 



CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING 123 

Events as they actually occur constitute a web from 
which no part can be torn without being instantly 
missed. History, then, has a double verification ; first, 
in the palpable effects that are open to everybody's 
inspection ; and, secondly, in the connected relation, 
the internal cohesion, of the particulars that compose 
the scene. Let any one try the experiment of subtract- 
ing from the world's history any signal event, like the 
battle of Marathon, the teaching of Aristotle, or the 
usurpation of Julius Csesar. He will soon be convinced 
of the futility of the attempt ; and this apart from the 
violence that must be done to direct historical testi- 
monies. 

Matthew Arnold tells us, that " there is no evidence 
of the establishment of our four Gospels as a gospel 
canon, or even of their existence as they now finally 
stand at all, before the last quarter of the second cen- 
tury." 1 I believe that this statement in both of its 
parts is incorrect ; that the theory at the basis of such 
views, of a gradual selection of the four out of a 
larger group of competitive Gospels, and of the growth 
of them by slow accretion, is a false one. It can be 
proved to rest on a misconception of the state of things 
in the early church, and to be open to other insu- 
perable objections. But let the assumption contained 
in the quotation above be allowed, for the present, to 
stand. Such authors as Strauss, Renan, Keim, not-, 
withstanding their rejection of received opinions re- 
specting the authorship and date of the Gospels, do not 
hesitate to draw the materials for their biographies of 
Jesus from them. They undertake, to be sure, to sub- 
ject them to a sifting process. We have to complain 
that their dissection is often arbitrary, being guided by 
i God and the Bible, p. 224. 



124 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

some predilection merely subjective, or determined by 
the exigencies of a theory. Professing to be scientific, 
they are warped by an unscientific bias. But large 
portions of the evangelic narratives they admit to be 
authentic. If they did not do this, they would have to 
lay down the pen. Their vocation as historians would 
be gone. Now, then, we may see what will follow, if 
we take for granted no more of the contents of the 
Gospels than what is conceded to be true, — no more, 
at any rate, than what can be proved on the spot to 
be veritable history. Waiving, for the moment, contro- 
verted questions about the origin of these books, let us 
see what conclusions can be fairly deduced from portions 
of them which no rational critic will consider fictitious. 
Having proceeded as far as we may on this path, it will 
then be in order to vindicate for the Gospels the rank 
of genuine and trustworthy narratives, in opposition to 
the opinion that they are of later origin, and compound- 
ed of fact and fiction. 

I. The known assertions of Jesus respecting his call- 
ing, and his authority among men, if they are not well 
founded, imply either a lack of mental sanity, or a deep 
perversion of character ; but neither of these last alter- 
natives can be reasonably accepted. 

No one doubts that Jesus professed to be the Christ, 
— the Messiah. This the apostles from the first, in their 
preaching, declared him to be. They went out preach- 
ing, first of all, that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. 
It was on account of this claim that he was put to death. 
Before his judges, Jewish and Roman, he for the most 
part kept silent. Seeing that they were blinded by pas- 
sion, or governed by purely selfish motives, he forbore 
useless appeals to reason and conscience. But he broke 
silence to avow that he was indeed the king, the " Son 



CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 125 

of God," — a familiar title of the Messiah. 1 It was held 
by the Jewish magistrates to be a blasphemous preten- 
sion. 2 He made it clear, then and at other times, what 
sort of a kingship it was which he asserted for himself. 
It was not a temporal sovereignty, ." a kingdom of this 
world : " no force was to be used in the defence or ex- 
tension of it. It was, however, a control far deeper and 
wider than any secular rule. He was the monarch of 
souls. His right was derived immediately from God. 
His legislation extended to the inmost motives of action, 
and covered in its wide sweep all the particulars of con- 
duct. In the Sermon on the Mount he spoke with an 
authority which was expressly contrasted with that of 
all previous lawgivers — " But I say unto you," etc. 3 
To his precepts he annexed penalties and rewards which 
were to be endured and received beyond the grave. Nay, 
his call was to all to come to him, to repose in him im- 
plicit trust as a moral and religious guide. He laid claim 
to the absolute allegiance of every soul. To those who 
complied he promised blessedness in the life to come. 
There can be no doubt that he assumed to exercise the 
prerogative of pardoning sin. Apart from declarations, 
uttered in an authoritative tone, of the terms on which 
God would forgive sin, 4 he assured individuals of the 
pardon of their transgressions. He taught that his 
death stood in the closest relation to the remission of 
sins. The divine clemency towards the sinful is some- 
how linked to it. He founded a rite on this efficacy of 
his death, — a part* of his teaching which is not only 
recorded by three of the Gospel writers, but is further 

1 Matt. xxvi. 64, xxvii. 11, cf. vers. 29, 37; Mark xiv. 62, xv. 2, cf. 
vers. 9, 12, 18, 26; Luke xxii. TO, xxiii. 2, cf. vers. 2, 38; John xviii. 33, 
37, cf. ver. 39, xix. 3, 14, 19, 21. 

2 Matt. xxvi. 65; Mark xiv. 64. 8 Matt. v. 22, 28, 34, 39, 44. 
4 Matt. v. 26, vi. 14, 15. 



126 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

placed beyond doubt by the testimony of the apostle 
Paul. 1 He uttered, there is no reason to doubt, the 
largest predictions concerning the prospective growth 
of his spiritual empire. It was to be as leaven, as a 
grain of mustard-seed. 2 The agency of God would be 
directed to securing its progress and triumph. The gov- 
ernment of the world would be shaped with reference 
to this end. 

I have stated in moderate terms the claims put forth 
by Jesus. These statements, or their equivalent, enter 
into the very substance of the evangelic tradition. Not 
only are they admitted to be authentic passages in the 
Gospels, but their historic reality is presupposed in 
the first teaching of Christianity by the apostles, and 
must be assumed in order to account for the rise of the 
church. 

Let it be remembered that these pretensions are put 
forth by a person whose social position is that of a peas- 
ant. He is brought up in a village which enjoys no 
very good repute in the region around it. Among his 
fellow-villagers he has made no extraordinary impres- 
sion. When he comes among them as a teacher, they 
refer to his connection with a family in the midst of 
them in a tone to imply that they had known of nothing 
adapted to excite a remarkable expectation concerning 
him. 3 For this passage in the Gospel narrative bears 
indisputable marks of authenticity. 

What shall be said of such claims, put forth by such 
a person, or by any human being? No doubt the first 
impression in such a case would be, that he had lost his 
reason. If there is not wilful imposture, it would be 
said there must be insanity. Nothing else can explain 

l 1 Cor. xi. 25. 2 Matt. xiii. 31-33; Luke xiii. 19-21. 

s Matt. xiii. 55-57; Mark vi. 3, 4; Luke iv. 22. 



CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 127 

so monstrous a delusion. We have only to imagine that 
a young man who has always lived in some obscure 
country town presents himself in one of our large cities, 
and announces himself there, and to his fellow-townsmen, 
and wherever else he can gain a hearing, as the Son of 
God, or Messiah ; summons all, the high and low, the 
educated and ignorant, to accept him as a special mes- 
senger from Heaven, to obey him implicitly, to break 
every tie which interferes with absolute obedience to 
him, — to hate, as it were, father and mother, wife and 
children, for his cause. He proceeds, we will suppose, 
in the name of God, to issue injunctions for the regula- 
tion of the thoughts even, as well as of external con- 
duct, to forgive the sins of one and another evil-doer, 
and to warn all who disbelieve in him, and disregard 
his commandments, that retribution awaits them in the 
future life. It being made clear that he is not an im- 
postor, the inference would be drawn at once that his 
reason is unsettled. This, in fact, is the common judg- 
ment in such cases. To entertain the belief that one 
is the Messiah is a recognized species of insanity. It is 
taken as proof positive of mental aberration. Tins is 
the verdict of the courts. Erskine, in one of his cele- 
brated speeches, 1 adverts to an instance of this kind of 
lunacy. A man who had been confined in a mad-house 
prosecuted the keeper, Dr. Sims, and his own brother, 
for unlawful detention. Erskine, before he had been 
informed of the precise nature of his delusion, examined 
the prosecutor without eliciting any signs of mental 
unsoundness. At length, learning what the particular 
character of the mental disorder was, the great lawyer, 
with affected reverence, apologized for his unbecoming 
treatment of the witness in presuming thus to examine 

1 In behalf of Hadfield, indicted for firing a pistol at the king. 



128 THE GROUNDS GF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

him. The man expressed his forgiveness, and then, 
with the utmost gravity, in the face of the whole court, 
said, "I am the Christ." He deemed himself "the Lord 
and Saviour of mankind." Nothing further, of course, 
was required for the acquittal of the persons charged 
with unjustly confining him. 

When it is said that claims like those of Jesus, unless 
they can be sustained, are indicative of mental derange- 
ment, we may be pointed, by way of objection, to found- 
ers of other systems of religion. But among these no 
parallel instance can be adduced to disprove the posi- 
tion here taken. Confucius can hardly be styled a 
religious teacher : he avoided, as far as he could, all ref- 
erence to the supernatural. His wisdom was of man, 
and professed no higher origin. A sage, a sagacious 
moralist, he is not to be classified with pretenders to 
divine illumination. Of Zoroaster we know so little, 
that it is utterly impossible to tell what he affirmed 
respecting his relation to God. The very date of his 
birth is now set back by scholars to a point at least 
five hundred years earlier than the time previously 
assigned for it. Of him, one of the recent authorities 
remarks, " The events of his life are almost all en- 
shrouded in darkness, to dispel which will be forever 
impossible, should no authentic historical records be 
discovered in Bactria, his home." 1 A still later writer 
goes farther : " When he lived, no one knows ; and every 
one agrees that all that the Parsis and the Greeks tell 
of him is mere legend, through which no solid histori- 
cal facts can be arrived at." 2 Thus the history of the 
principal teacher of one of the purest and most ancient 

1 Haug, Essays on the Laws, Writings, and Religion of the Parsis 
(2d ed., Boston, 1868 ), p. 295. 

2 The Zend-Avesta, translated by J. Darmestetter (Oxford, 1880), 
Intr., p. Lxxvi. 



CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 129 

of the ethnic religions is veiled in hopeless obscurity. 
With respect to Buddha, or Sakyamuni, it is not impos- 
sible to separate main facts in his career from the mass 
of legendary matter which has accumulated about them. 
But the office which he took on himself was not even 
that of a prophet. He was a philanthropist, a reformer. 
The supernatural features of his history have been 
grafted upon it by. later generations. An able scholar 
has lately described Buddhism as "a religion which 
ignores the existence of God, and denies the existence 
of the soul." 1 " Buddhism is no religion at all, and 
certainly no theology, but rather a system of duty, 
morality, and benevolence, without real deity, prayer, 
or priest." 2 Mohammed unquestionably believed him- 
self inspired, and clothed with a divine commission. 
Beyond the ferment excited in his mind by the vivid 
perception of a single great, half-forgotten truth, we 
are aided in explaining his self-delusion, as far as it 
was a delusion, by due attention to the morbid con- 
stitutional tendencies which led to epileptic fits, as well 
as to reveries and trances. Moreover, there were vices 
of character which played an important part in nourish- 
ing his fanatical convictions ; and these must be taken 
into the account. It is not maintained here that reli- 
gious enthusiasm which passes the limits of truth should 
always raise a suspicion of insanity. We are not called 
upon by the necessities of the argument to point out 
the boundary-line where reason is unhinged. Socrates 
was persuaded that a demon or spirit within kept him 
back from unwise actions. Whether right or wrong 
in this belief, he was no doubt a man of sound mind. 
One may erroneously conceive himself to be under 

1 See Encycl. Britannica, art. " Buddhism," by J. W. Rhys Davis. 

2 Monier Williams, Hinduism (London, 1877), p. 74. 



130 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

supernatural guidance without being literally irrational. 
But if Socrates, a mortal like the men about him, had 
solemnly and persistently declared himself to be the 
vicegerent of the Almighty, and to have the authority 
and the prerogatives which Jesus claimed for himself; 
had he declared, just before drinking the hemlock, that 
his death was the means or the guaranty of the forgive- 
ness of sins, — the sanity of his mind would not have 
been so clear. 

Nor is there validity in the objection that times have 
changed, so that an inference which would justly follow 
upon the assertion of so exalted claims by a person liv- 
ing now would not be warranted in the case of one 
living in that remote age, and in the community to 
which Jesus belonged. The differences between that 
day and this, and between Palestine, and America or 
England, are not of a quality to lessen materially the 
difficulty of supposing that a man in his right mind 
could falsely believe himself to be the King and Re- 
deemer of mankind. The conclusive answer to the ob- 
jection is, that the claims of Jesus were actually treated 
as in the highest degree presumptuous. They were 
scoffed at as monstrous by his contemporaries. He was 
put to death for bringing them forward. Shocking 
blasphemy was thought to be involved in such preten- 
sions. It is true that individuals in that era set up to 
be the Messiah, especially in the tremendous contest 
that ensued with the Romans. But these false Mes- 
siahs were impostors, or men in whom imposture and 
wild fanaticism were equally mingled. 

Mental disorder has actually been imputed to Jesus. 
At the beginning of his public labors at Capernaum, 
his relatives, hearing what excitement he was causing, 
and how the people thronged upon him, so that he and 






CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 131 

his disciples could not snatch a few minutes in which 
to take refreshment, for the moment feared that he was 
" beside himself." x No doubt will be raised about the 
truth of this incident : it is not a circumstance which 
any disciple, earlier or later, would have been disposed 
to invent. The Pharisees and scribes charged that he 
was possessed of a demon. According to the fourth 
Gospel, they said, "He hath a demon, and is mad." 2 
The credibility of the fourth evangelist here is assumed 
by Renan. 3 In Mark, the charge that he is possessed 
by the prince of evil spirits immediately follows the 
record of the attempt of his relatives " to lay hold on 
him." 4 Not improbably, the evangelist means to imply 
that mental aberration was involved in the accusation of 
the scribes, as it is expressly said to have been imputed 
to him by his family. This idea of mental alienation 
has not come alone from the Galilean family in their 
first amazement at the commotion excited by Jesus, 
and in their solicitude on account of his unremitting 
devotion to his work. Nor has it been confined to the 
adversaries who were stung by his rebukes, and dreaded 
the loss of their hold on the people. A recent writer, 
after speaking of Jesus as swept onward, in the latter 
part of his career, by a tide of enthusiasm, says, " Some- 
times one would have said that his reason was dis- 
turbed." " The grand vision of the kingdom of God 
made him dizzy." 5 " His temperament, inordinately 
impassioned, carried him every moment beyond the 

1 Mark iii. 21, cf. ver. 32. In ver. 21 £\eyo» may have an indefi- 
nite subject, and refer to a spreading report which the relatives — 
oi Trap clvtov — had heard : so Ewald, Weiss, Marcusevangclium, ad 
loc. Or it may denote what was said by the relatives themselves : so 
Meyer. 

2 ^aiverai, John x. 20. 8 Vie de Je'sus, 13 me ed .. p. 331. 
4 Mark iii. 21 6 « Lui donnait le vertige." 



132 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

limits of human nature." 1 These suggestions of Renan 
are cautiously expressed. He broaches, as will be seen 
hereafter, an hypothesis still more revolting, for the 
sake of clearing away difficulties which his Atheistic or 
Pantheistic philosophy does not enable him otherwise 
to surmount. Yet he does, though not without some 
signs of timidity, more than insinuate that enthusiasm 
was carried to the pitch of derangement. Reason is 
said to have lost its balance. 

The words and conduct of Jesus can be considered 
extravagant only on the supposition that his claims, 
his assertions respecting himself, were exaggerated. 
His words and actions were not out of harmony with 
these claims. It is in these pretensions, if anywhere, 
that the proof of mental alienation must be sought. 
There is nothing in the teaching of Christ, there is 
nothing in his actions, to countenance the notion that 
he was dazed and deluded by morbidly excited feeling. 
Who can read the Sermon on the Mount, and not be 
impressed with the perfect sobriety of his temperament ? 
Everywhere, in discourse and dialogue, there is a vein 
of deep reflection. He meets opponents, and even 
cavillers, with arguments. When he is moved to in- 
dignation, there is the most complete self-possession. 
There is no vague outpouring of anger, as of a torrent 
bursting its barriers. Every item in the denunciation 
of the Pharisees is coupled with a distinct specification 
justifying it. 2 No single idea is seized upon and mag- 
nified at the expense of other truths of equal moment. 
No one-sided view of human nature is held up for 
acceptance. A broad, humane spirit pervades the pre- 
cepts which he uttered. Asceticism, the snare of reli- 
gious reformers, is foreign both to his teaching and his 

1 Vie <le Jesus, p. 331. 2 Matt, y^jj. 



CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 133 

example. Shall the predictions relative to the spread of 
his kingdom, and to its influence on the world of man- 
kind, be attributed to a distempered fancy? But how 
has history vindicated them ! What is the history of 
the Christian ages but the verification of that forecast 
which Jesus had of the effect of his work, brief though 
it was? Men who give up important parts of the 
Christian creed discern, nevertheless, "the sweet rea- 
sonableness " which characterizes the teaching, and, 
equally so, the actions, of Jesus. The calm wisdom, 
the inexhaustible depth of which becomes more and 
more apparent as time flows on — is that the offspring 
of a disordered brain? That penetration into human 
nature which laid bare the secret springs of action, 
which knew men better than they knew themselves, 
piercing through every disguise — did that belong to 
an intellect diseased? 

If we reject the hypothesis of mental alienation, we 
are driven to the alternative of accepting the conscious- 
ness of Jesus with respect to his office and calling as 
veracious, or of attributing to him a deep moral depra- 
vation. He exalts himself above the level of mankind. 
He places himself on an eminence inaccessible to all 
other mortals. He conceives himself to stand in a rela- 
tion both to God and to the human race to which no 
other human being can aspire. It would be the wild- 
est dream for any other human being to imagine him- 
self to be possessed of the prerogatives which Jesus 
quietly assumes to exercise. Is this mere assumption ? 
What an amount of self-ignorance does it not involve ! 
What self-exaggeration is implied in it ! If moral rec- 
titude contains the least guaranty of self-knowledge, 
if purity of character tends to make a man know him- 
self, and guard himself from seizing on an elevation 



134 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

that does not belong to him, then what shall be said of 
him who is guilty of self-deification, or of what is 
almost equivalent? On the contrary, the holiness of 
Jesus, if he was holy, is a ground for giving credence 
to his convictions respecting himself. 

If there is good reason to conclude that Jesus was a 
sinless man, there is an equal reason for believing in 
him. It has been said, even by individuals among the 
defenders of the faith, that, independently of miracles, 
his perfect sinlessness cannot be established. " But 
where," writes Dr. Mozley, " is the proof of perfect sin- 
lessness? No outward life and conduct could prove 
this, because goodness depends on the inward motive, 
and the perfection of the inward motive is not proved 
by the outward act. Exactly the same act may be 
perfect or imperfect, according to the spirit of the doer. 
The same language of indignation against the wicked 
which issues from our Lord's mouth might be uttered 
by an imperfect good man who mixed human frailty 
with the emotion." *, The importance of miracles as the 
counterpart and complement of evidence of a different 
nature is not questioned. It is not denied, that if, by 
proof, demonstration is meant, such proof of the sinless- 
ness of Jesus is precluded. Reasoning on such a matter 
is, of course, probable. Nevertheless, it may be fully 
convincing. How do we judge, respecting any one whom 
we well know, whether he possesses one trait of char- 
acter, or lacks another? How do we form a decided 
opinion, in many cases, with regard to the motives of a 
particular act, or in respect to his habitual temper? It 
is by processes of inference precisely similar to those by 
which we conclude that Jesus was pure and holy. There 
are indications of perfect purity and holiness which 

1 Mozley, Lectures on Miracles, p. 11. 



CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 135 

exclude rational cloubt upon the point. There are 
phenomena, positive and negative, which presuppose 
sinless perfection, which baffle explanation on any other 
hypothesis. If there are facts which it is impossible to 
account for, in case moral fault is admitted to exist, then 
the existence of moral fault is disproved. 

It may be thought that we are at least disabled from 
proving the sinlessness of Jesus until we have first es- 
tablished the ordinary belief as to the origin 'of the 
Gospels. This idea is also a mistake. Our impression 
of the character of Christ results from a great number 
of incidents and conversations recorded of him. The 
data of the tradition are miscellaneous, multiform. If 
there had been matter, which, if handed down, would 
have tended to an estimate of Jesus in the smallest 
degree less favorable than is deducible from the tradi- 
tion as it stands, who was competent, even if anybody 
had been disposed, to eliminate it? What disciples, 
earlier or later, had the keenness of moral discernment 
which would have been requisite in order thus to sift 
the evangelic narrative ? Something, to say the least, — 
some words, some actions, or omissions to act, — would 
have been left to stain the fair picture. Moreover, the 
conception of the character of Jesus which grows up 
in the mind on a perusal of the gospel records has a 
unity, a harmony, a unique individuality, a verisimili- 
tude. This proves that the narrative passages which 
call forth this image in the reader's mind are substan- 
tially faithful. The characteristics of Jesus which are 
collected from them must have belonged to an actual 
person. 

In an exhaustive argument for the sinlessness of 
Jesus, one point would be the impression which his 
character made on others. What were the reproaches 



136 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

of his enemies ? If there were faults, vulnerable places, 
his enemies would find them out. But the things 
which they laid to his charge are virtues. He associ- 
ated with the poor and with evil-doers. But this was 
from love, and from a desire to do them good. He was 
willing to do good on the sabbath ; that is, he was not 
a slave to ceremony. He honored the spirit, not the 
letter, of law. He did not bow to the authority of 
pretenders to superior sanctity. Leaving out of view 
his claim to be the Christ, we cannot think of a single 
accusation that does not redound to his credit. There 
is no reason to distrust the evangelic tradition, which 
tells us that a thief at his side on the cross was struck 
with his innocence, and said, "This man hath done 
nothing amiss." The centurion exclaimed, " Truly, 
this was a righteous man ! " Since the narratives do 
not conceal the insults offered to Jesus by the Roman 
soldiers, and the scoffs of one of the malefactors, there is 
no ground for ascribing to invention the incidents last 
mentioned. But what impression was made as to his 
character on the company of his intimate associates? 
They were not obtuse, unthinking followers. They 
often wondered that he did not take a different way of 
founding his kingdom, and spoke out their dissatis- 
faction. They were not incapable observers and critics 
of character. Peculiarities that must have excited 
their surprise, they frankly related; as that he wept, 
was at times physically exhausted, prayed in an agony 
of supplication. These circumstances must have come 
from the original reporters. It is certain, that, had 
they marked any thing in Jesus which was indicative 
of moral infirmity, the spell that bound them to him 
would have been broken. Their faith in him would 
have been dissolved. It is certain that in the closest 



CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 137 

association with him, in private and in public, they 
were more and more struck with his faultless excel- 
lence. They parted from him at last with the unani- 
mous, undoubting conviction that not the faintest stain 
of moral guilt rested on his spirit. He was immacu- 
late. This was a part of their preaching. Without 
that conviction on their part, Christianity never could 
have gained a foothold on the earth. 

It is not my purpose to dwell on that marvellous 
unison of virtues in the character of Jesus, — virtues 
often apparently contrasted. It was not piety without 
philanthropy, or philanthropy without piety, but both 
in the closest union. It was love to God and love to 
man, each in perfection, and both forming one spirit. 
It was not compassion alone, unqualified by the senti- 
ment of justice ; nor was it rectitude, austere, unpity- 
ing. It was compassion and justice, the spirit of love 
and the spirit of truth, neither clashing with the other. 
There was a prevailing concern for the soul and the 
life to come, but no cynical indifference to human sufr 
fering and well-being now. There was courage that 
quailed before no adversary, but without the least 
ingredient of false daring, and observant of the limits 
of prudence. There was a dignity which needed no 
exterior prop to uphold it, yet was mixed with a sweet 
humility. There was rebuke for the proudest, a relent- 
less unmasking of sanctimonious oppressors of the poor, 
and the gentlest words for the child or the suffering 
invalid. 

There is one fact which ought to remove every 
shadow of doubt as to the absolute sinlessness of Jesus. 
Let this fact be thoroughly pondered. He was utterly 
free from self-accusation, from the consciousness of 
fault ; whereas, had there been a failure in duty, his 



138 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

sense of guilt would have been intense and overwhelm- 
ing. This must have been the case had there been 
only a single lapse, — one instance, even in thought, of 
infidelity to God and conscience. But no such offence 
could have existed by itself: it would have tainted the 
character. Sin does not come and disappear, like a 
passing cloud. Sin is never a microscopic taint. Sin is 
self-propagating. Its first step is a fall and the begin- 
ning of a bondage. We reiterate that a consciousness 
of moral defect in such an one as we know that Jesus 
was, and as he is universally conceded to have been, 
must infallibly have betrayed itself in the clearest 
manifestations of conscious guilt, of penitence or of 
remorse. The extreme delicacy of his moral sense is 
perfectly obvious. His moral criticism goes down to 
the secret recesses of the heart. He demands, be it 
observed, self-judgment: "First cast the beam out of 
thine own eye ; " " Judge not." His condemnation of 
moral evil is utterly unsparing: the very roots of it 
in illicit desire are to be extirpated. He knows how 
sinful men are. He teaches them all to pray, " Forgive 
us our debts ; " yet there is not a scintilla of evidence 
that he ever felt the need of offering that prayer for 
himself. From beginning to end there is not a lisp of 
self-blame. He prays often, he needs help from above ; 
but there is no confession of personal unworthiness. 
Men generally are reminded of their sins when they are 
overtaken by calamity. The ejaculations of Jesus in 
the presence of his intimate associates, when he was 
sinking under the burden of mental sorrow, are trans- 
mitted, — and there is no appearance whatever of a 
disposition on the part of disciples to cloak his mental 
experiences, or misrepresent them, — but not the slight- 
est consciousness of error is betrayed in these sponta- 



CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 139 

neous outpourings of the soul. " His was a piety with 
no consciousness of sin, and no profession of repent- 
ance." 1 

Let the reader contrast this unbroken peace of con- 
science with the self-chastisement of an upright spirit 
which has become alive to the obligations of divine law, 
— the same law that Jesus inculcated. " Oh wretched 
man that I am ! " No language short of this corre- 
sponds to the abject distress of Paul. There are no 
bounds to his self-abasement : he is " the chief of sin- 
ners." The burden of self-condemnation is too heavy 
for such conscientious minds to carry. Had the will of 
Jesus ever succumbed to the tempter, had moral evil 
ever found entrance into his heart, is it possible that 
his humiliation would have been less, or less manifest ? 
That serene self-approbation would have fled from his 
soul. Had the Great Teacher, whose words are a kind 
of audible conscience ever attending us, and are more 
powerful than any thing else to quicken the sense of 
obligation — had he so little moral sensibility as falsely 
to acquit himself of blame before God ? It is psycho- 
logically impossible that he should have been blame- 
worthy without knowing it, without feeling it with 
crushing distinctness and vividness, and without exhib- 
iting penitence, or remorse and shame, in the plainest 
manner. There was no such consciousness, there was no 
such expression of guilt. Therefore he was without sin. 

We have said that there is nothing in the evangelic 
tradition to imply the faintest consciousness of moral 
evil in the mind of Jesus. A single passage has been 
by some falsely construed as containing such an impli- 
cation. It may be worth while to notice it. To the 
ruler who inquired what he should do to secure eternal 

1 W. M. Taylor, D.D., The Gospel Miracles, etc., p. 50. 



140 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

life, Jesus is said to have answered, " Why callest 
thou me good ? there is none good but one, that is, 
God." 1 There is another reading of the passage in 
Matthew, which is adopted by Teschendorf : " Why 
askest thou me concerning the good ? There is one," 
etc. 2 This answer is not unsuitable to the question, 
" What good thing shall I do ? " It points the inquirer 
to God. It is fitted to suggest that goodness is not in 
particular doings, but begins in a connecting of the soul 
with God. We cannot be certain, however, whether 
Jesus made exactly this response, or said what is given 
in the parallel passages in Mark and Luke (and in the 
accepted text of Matthew). If the latter hypothesis 
is correct, it is still plain that the design of Jesus was to 
direct the inquirer to God, whose will is the fountain 
of law. He disclaims the epithet "good," and applies 
it to God alone, meaning that God is the primal source 
of all goodness. Such an expression is in full accord 
with the usual language of Jesus descriptive of his 
dependence on God. The goodness of Jesus, though 
without spot or flaw, was progressive in its develop- 
ment; and this distinction from the absolute goodness 
of God might justify the phraseology which he em- 
ployed. 3 The humility which Jesus evinced in his reply 
to the ruler was not that of an offender against the 
divine law. Its ground was totally diverse. 

There is a single occurrence narrated in the fourth 
Gospel, which may be appropriately referred to in this 
place. 4 Jesus said, " I go not up to this feast : " the 
" yet " in the Authorized Version probably forms no 
part of the text. " But when his brethren were gone 



1 Matt. six. 17, cf. Mark x. 18 ; Luke xviii. 19. 

2 Tt |U.e cpiOTos TTepl tou aya9ov ; 

8 See Weiss, Matthiiusevangelium, ad loc. 4 John vii. 8, 10, 14. 



CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 141 

up, then went lie also up, not openly, but, as it were, 
in secret." Can anybody think that the author of the 
Gospel, whoever he was, understands, and means that 
his readers shall infer, that the first statement to the 
brethren was an intentional untruth? It is possible 
that new considerations, not mentioned in the brief 
narration, induced Jesus to alter his purpose. This is, 
for instance, the opinion of Meyer. 1 He may have 
waited for a divine intimation, which came sooner than 
it was looked for. 2 It is even possible that the ex- 
pression, " I go not up," etc., may have been under- 
stood to signify simply that he would not accompany 
the festal caravan, and thus make prematurely a public 
demonstration adapted to rouse and combine his adver- 
saries. In fact, he did not show himself at Jerusalem 
until the first part of the feast was over. It is not 
unlikely that he travelled over Samaria. " My time," 
he had said to his brethren, " is not yet full come." 

Complaints have been made of the severity of his 
denunciation of the Pharisees. Theodore Parker has 
given voice to this criticism. It is just these passages, 
however, and such as these, which save Christianity 
from the stigma cast upon it by the patronizing critics 
who style it " a sweet Galilean vision," and find in it 
nothing but a solace " for tender and weary souls." 3 It 
is no fault in the teaching of Jesus that in it right- 
eousness speaks out in trumpet-tones. There is no 
unseemly passion, but there is no sentimentalism. Hy- 
pocrisy and cruelty are painted in their proper colors. 
That retribution is stored up for the iniquity which 

1 Evang. Johannis, ad loc. 

2 Cf. vers. (J, 7, and ii. 4. So Weiss, in Meyer's Komm. uber daa 
Evang. Johann., p. 310. 

8 See Renan, English Conferences, and passim. 



142 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

steels itself against the motives to reform is a part of 
the gospel which no right-minded man would wish 
to blot out: it is a truth too clearly manifest in the 
constitution of things, too deeply graven on the con- 
sciences of men. The spotless excellence of Jesus 
needs no vindication against objections of this nature. 

Were it possible to believe, that apart from the blind- 
ing, misleadiDg influence of a perverse character, so 
monstrous an idea respecting himself — supposing it to 
be false — gained a lodgement in the mind of Jesus, 
the effect must have been a steady, rapid moral deteri- 
oration. False pretensions, self-exalting claims, even 
when there is no deliberate insincerity in the assertion 
of them, distort the perceptions. They kindle pride 
and other unhealthy passions. The career of Moham- 
med, from the time when he set up to be a prophet, 
illustrates the downward course of one whose soul is 
possessed by a false persuasion of this sort. When the 
bounds that limit the rights of an individual in relation 
to his fellow-men are broken through, degeneracy of 
character follows. His head is turned. He seeks to 
hold a sceptre that is unlawfully grasped, to exercise a 
prerogative to which his powers are not adapted. Sim- 
plicity of feeling, self-restraint, respect for the equal 
rights of others, genuine fear of God, gradually die 
out. 

If it be supposed that Jesus, as the result of morbid 
enthusiasm, falsely thought himself the representa- 
tive of God, and the Lord and Redeemer of mankind, 
experience would have dispelled so vain a dream. It 
might, perhaps, have subsisted in the first flush of 
apparent, transient success. But defeat, failure, the 
desertion of supporters, will often awaken distrust, 
even in a cause which is true and just. How would it 



CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 143 

have been with the professed Messiah when the leaders 
of Church and State poured derision on his claims? 
How would it have been when his own neighbors, 
among whom he had grown up, chased him from the 
town? how when the people who had flocked after 
him for a while, turned away in disbelief, when his 
own disciples betrayed or denied him, when ruin and 
disgrace were heaped upon his cause, when he was 
brought face to face with death ? How would he have 
felt when the crown of thorns was put on his head? 
when, in mockery, a gorgeous robe was put on him? 
What an ordeal to pass through was that ! Would the 
dream of enthusiasm have survived all this? Would 
not this high-wrought self-confidence have collapsed? 
Savonarola, when he stood in the pulpit of St. Mark's, 
with the eager multitude before him, and was excited 
by his own eloquence, seemed to himself to foresee, 
and ventured to foretell, specific events. But in the 
coolness and calm of his cell he had doubts about the 
reality of his own power of prediction. Hence, when 
tortured on the rack, he could not conscientiously affirm 
that his prophetic utterances were inspired of God. 
He might think so at certain moments ; but there came 
the ordeal of sober reflection, there came the ordeal of 
suffering ; and under this trial his own faith in himself 
was to this extent dissipated. ■ 

The depth and sincerity of the conviction which Jesus 
entertained respecting himself endured a test even more 
severe than that of an ignominious failure, and the 
pains of the cross. He saw clearly that he was putting 
others in mortal jeopardy. 1 The same ostracism, scorn, 
and malice awaited those who had attached themselves 
to his person, and were prominently identified with his 

1 Matt. x. 17, 18, 36 ; Mark x. 39 ; John xvi. 2. 



144 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF 

cause. Their families would cast them off; the rulers 
of Church and State would harass them without pity ; 
to kill them would be counted a service rendered to 
God. A man must be in his heart of hearts persuaded 
of the justice of a cause before he can make up his 
mind to die for it ; but, if he have a spark of right 
feeling in him, he must be convinced in his inmost soul 
before he consents to involve the innocent and trustful 
follower in the ruin which he foresees to be coming on 
himself. It must not be forgotten, that, from the begin- 
ning of the public life of Jesus to his last breath, the 
question of the reality of his pretensions was definitely 
before him. He could not escape from it for a moment. 
It confronted him at every turn. The question was, 
should men believe in him. The strength of his belief 
in himself was thus continually tested. It was a sub- 
ject of debate with disbelievers. On one occasion — 
the historical reality of the occurrence no one doubts — 
he called together his disciples, and inquired of them 
what idea was entertained respecting him by the peo- 
ple. 1 He heard their answer. Then he questioned 
them concerning their own conviction on this subject. 
One feels that his mood could not be more thoughtful, 
more deliberate. The declaration of faith by Peter, 
he pronounces to be a rock. It is an immovable foun- 
dation, on which he will erect an indestructible com- 
munity. If Jesus persevered in the assertion of a 
groundless pretension, it was not for the reason that it 
was unchallenged. It was not cherished because there 
were few inclined to dispute it. He was not led to 
maintain it from want of reflection. 

The foregoing considerations, it is believed, are suf- 
ficient to show that the abiding conviction in the mind 

i Matt. xvi. 13-21. 



CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 145 

of Jesus respecting his own mission and authority is 
inexplicable, except on the supposition of its truth. 
There was no moral evil to cloud his self-discernment. 
The bias of no selfish impulse warped his estimate of 
himself. His conviction respecting his calling and 
office remained unshaken under the sternest trials. 

II. The sinlessness of Jesus is in its probative force 
equivalent to a miracle ; it establishes his supernatural 
mission ; it proves his exceptional relation to God. 

We are now to contemplate the sinlessness of Jesus 
from another point of view, as an event having a mirac- 
ulous character, and as thus directly attesting his claims, 
or the validity of his consciousness, of a supernatural 
connection with God. 

Sin is the disharmony of the will with the law of uni- 
versal love. This law is one in its essence, but branches 
out in two directions, — as love supreme to God, and 
equal or impartial love to men. We have no call here 
to investigate the origin of sin. It is the universality 
of sin in the world of mankind which is the postulate of 
the argument. Sin varies indefinitely in kind and 
degree. But sinfulness in its generic character is an 
attribute of the human family. Rarely is a human 
being to be found in whom no distinct fault of a moral 
nature is plainly discernible. There may be here and 
there a person whose days have been spent in the seclu- 
sion of domestic life, under Christian influences, without 
any such explicit manifestation of evil as arrests atten- 
tion, and calls for censure. Occasionally there is a man 
in whom, even though he mingles in the active work of 
life, his associates find nothing to blame. But, in these 
extremely infrequent instances of lives without any ap- 
parent blemish, the individuals themselves who are thus 
remarkable are the last to join in the favorable verdict. 



146 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

That sensitiveness of conscience which accompanies 
pure character recognizes and deplores the presence of 
sin. If there are not positive offences, there are defects: 
things are left undone which ought to be done. If there 
are no definite habits of feeling to be condemned, there 
is a conscious lack of a due energy of holy principle. 
In those who are deemed, and justly deemed, the most 
virtuous, and in whom there is no tendency to morbid 
self-depreciation, there are deep feelings of penitence. 
" If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, 
and the truth is not in us." 1 This is quoted here, not 
as being an authoritative testimony, but as the utterance 
of one whose standard of character was obviously the 
highest. With such an ideal of human perfection, 
the very thought that any man should consider himself 
sinless excites indignation. One who pronounces him- 
self blameless before God proves that falsehood, and 
not truth, governs his judgment. 

What shall be said, then, if there be One of whom it 
can truly be affirmed, that every motive of his heart, not 
less than every overt action, was exactly confirmed to 
the loftiest ideal of excellence, — One in whom there 
was never the faintest self-condemnation, or the least 
ground for such an emotion ? There is a miracle ; not, 
indeed, on the same plane as miracles which interrupt 
the sequences of natural law. It is an event in another 
order of tilings than the material sphere. But it is 
equally an exception to all human experience. It is 
equally to all who discern the fact a proclamation of 
the immediate presence of God. It is equally an attes- 
tation that He who is thus marked out in distinction 
from all other members of the race bears a divine com- 
mission. There is a break in the uniform course of 

i 1 John i. 8 



CHRIST'S SUPERNATURAL CALLING. 147 

things, to which no cause can be assigned in the natural 
order. Such a phenomenon authorizes the same infer- 
ence as that which is drawn from the instantaneous 
cure, by a word, of a man born blind. 

On this eminence He stands who called himself the 
Son of man. It is not claimed that this peculiarity of 
itself proves the divinity of Jesus. This would be a 
larger conclusion than the premises justify. But the 
inference is unavoidable, first, that his relation to God 
is altogether peculiar, and, secondly, that his testimony 
respecting himself has the attestation of a miracle. 
That testimony must be on all hands allowed to have 
included the claim to be the authoritative Guide and 
the Saviour of mankind. 



CHAPTER VI. 

PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST INDEPENDENTLY 
OF SPECIAL INQUIRY INTO THE AUTHORSHIP OF 
THE GOSPELS. 

The reader will bear in mind that we are reasoning, 
for the present, on the basis of the view respecting the 
origin of the Gospels which is commonly taken by 
critics of the sceptical schools. Let it be assumed that 
more than one of the Gospels resulted from an expan- 
sion of earlier documents which included a less amount 
of matter ; that the traditions which are collected in the 
Gospels of the canon are of unequal value ; and that all 
of these books first saw the light in their present form 
somewhere in the course of the second century. Still 
it is maintained, that, even on this hypothesis, the main 
facts at the foundation of the Christian faith can be 
established. In this chapter it is proposed to bring 
forward evidence to prove that miracles were wrought 
by Jesus substantially as related by the evangelists. 

I. The fact that the apostles themselves professed to 
work miracles by a power derived from Christ makes 
it highly probable that they believed miracles to have 
been wrought by him. 

The point to be shown is, that narratives of miracles 
performed by Christ were embraced in the accounts 
which the apostles were in the habit of giving of his 
life. A presumptive proof of this proposition is drawn 
from the circumstance that they themselves, in fulfill- 



PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 149 

ing the office to which they were appointed by him, 
professed to work miracles, and considered this an in- 
dispensable criterion of their divine mission. There is 
no doubt of the fact as here stated. Few scholars now 
hold that the Epistle to the Hebrews was written by 
Paul. Some follow an ancient opinion, which Grotius 
held, and to which Calvin was inclined, — that Luke 
wrote it. Others attribute it to Barnabas. Many are 
disposed, with Luther, to consider Apollos its author. 
It is a question which we have no occasion to discuss 
here. The date of the Epistle is the only point that 
concerns us at present. It was used by Clement of 
Rome in his Epistle to the Corinthians, and therefore 
must have existed as early as A.D. 97. A majority 
of critics, including adherents of opposite creeds in 
theology, infer, from passages in the Epistle itself, that 
the temple at Jerusalem was still standing when it was 
written. 1 Hilgenfeld, the ablest representative of the 
Tubingen school, is of opinion that Apollos wrote it 
before A.D. 67. 2 Be this as it may, its author was a 
contemporary and acquaintance of the apostles. 3 Now, 
he tells us that their supernatural mission was con- 
firmed by the miracles which they did : " God also bear- 
ing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with 
divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost." 4 The 
same thing is repeatedly asserted by the Apostle Paul. 
" Working miracles among j^ou " 5 is the phrase which 
he uses when speaking of what he himself had done 
in Galatia. If we give to the preposition, as perhaps 
we should, its literal sense "in," the meaning is, that 
the apostle had imparted to his converts the power 

1 See Heb. vii. 9, viii. 3, ix. 4. 2 Einl. in d. N. Test., p. 388. 

8 Heb. ii. 3. 4 ibid., ver. 5. 

6 ivepyCiv Wa^ei? eu vixlv, Gal. Ui. 5. 



150 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

to work miracles. 1 In the Epistle to the Romans he 
explicitly refers to "the mighty signs and wonders" 
which Christ had wrought by him : it was by " deed," 
as well as by word, that he had succeeded in convincing 
a multitude of brethren. 2 How, indeed, we might stop 
to ask, could such an effect have been produced at that 
time in the heathen world by " word " alone ? But in 
the Second Epistle to the Corinthians he reminds them 
that miracles — "signs and wonders and mighty deeds" 
— had been wrought by him before their eyes ; and he 
calls them " the signs," not of an apostle, as the Author- 
ized Version has it, but of " the apostle." 3 They are 
the credentials of the apostolic office. By these an 
apostle is known to be what he professes to be. In 
working miracles he had exhibited the characteristic 
marks of an apostle. The author of the book of Acts, 
then, goes no farther than Paul himself goes, when that 
author ascribes to the apostles " many wonders and 
signs." 4 It is in the highest degree probable, in the 
light of the passages quoted from Paul, that, if he and 
Barnabas were vindicating themselves and their work, 
they would declare, as the author of Acts affirms they 
did, " what miracles and wonders God had wrought 
among the Gentiles by them." 5 Now we advance 
another step. In each of the first three Gospels the 
direction to work miracles forms a part of the brief 
commission given by Christ to the apostles. 6 If the 
apostles could remember any thing correctly, would they 
forget the terms of this brief, momentous charge from 
the Master ? This, if any thing, would be handed down 
in an authentic form. In the charge when the apostles 

i Cf. Lightfoot and Meyer, ad loc. 2 Roin. xv. 18-20. 

3 2 Cor. xii. 12. 4 Acts ii. 43, cf. iv. 30, v. 12, xiv. 3. 

6 Acts xv. 12, cf. ver. 4. 

8 Matt. x. 1, 8 ; Mark iii. 15, Luke ix. 2 ; cf. Luke x. 9. 



PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 151 

were first sent out, as it is given in Matthew, they were 
to limit their labors to the Jews, — to " the lost sheep 
of the house of Israel." They were not even to go at 
that time to the Samaritans. This injunction is a strong 
confirmation of the exactness of the report in the first 
evangelist. Coupling the known fact, that the working 
of miracles was considered by the apostles a distinguish- 
ing sign of their office, with the united testimony of 
the first three Gospels, — the Gospels in which the ap- 
pointment of the Twelve is recorded, — it may be safely 
concluded that Jesus did tell them to " heal the sick, 
cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils." He 
told them to preach, and to verify their authority as 
teachers by this merciful exertion of powers greater 
than belong to man. Is it probable that he expected 
them to furnish proofs of a kind which he had not fur- 
nished himself? Did he direct them to do what they 
had never seen him do ? Did he profess to communi- 
cate to his apostles a power which he had given them 
no evidence of possessing? 

II. Injunctions of Jesus not to report his miracles, 
it is evident, are truthfully imputed to him ; and this 
proves that the events to which they relate actually 
took place. 

It is frequently said in the Gospels, that Jesus en- 
joined upon those whom he miraculously healed not to 
make it publicly known. 1 He was anxious that the 
miracle should not be noised abroad. For instance, it 
is said in Mark, that in the neighborhood of Bethsaida 
he sent home a blind man whom he had cured, saying, 
" Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the 
town." 2 The motive is plainly indicated. Jesus had 

1 Matt. ix. 30, xii. 16, xvii. 9 ; Mark iii. 12, v. 43, vii. 36, viii. 26, 
ix. 9 ; Luke v. 14, viii. 56. 2 Mark viii. 26. 



152 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

to guard against a popular uprising, than which noth- 
ing was easier to provoke among the inflammable 
population of Galilee. There were times, it costs no 
effort to believe, when they were eager to make him 
a king. 1 He had to conceal himself from the multi- 
tude. He had to withdraw into retired places. It was 
necessary for him to recast utterly the popular concep- 
tion of the Messiah, and this was a slow and almost 
impossible task. It was hard to educate even the dis- 
ciples out of the old prepossession. Hence he used 
great reserve and caution in announcing himself as the 
Messiah. He made himself known by degrees. When 
Peter uttered his glowing confession of faith, Jesus 
charged him and his companions " that they should tell 
no man of him ; " that is, they should keep to them- 
selves their knowledge that he was the Christ. 2 The 
interdict against publishing abroad his miracles is 
therefore quite in keeping Avith a portion of the evan- 
gelic tradition that is indubitably authentic. On the 
other hand, such an interdict is a thing which it would 
occur to nobody to invent. It is the last thing which 
contrivers of miraculous tales (unless they had before 
them the model of the Gospels) would be likely to 
imagine. No plausible motive can be thought of for 
attributing falsely such injunctions to Jesus, unless it 
is assumed that there was a desire to account for the 
alleged miracles not being more widely known. But 
this would imply intentional falsehood in the first nar- 
rators, whoever they were. Even this supposition, in 
itself most unlikely, is completely shut out, because 
the prohibitions are generally said to have proved in- 
effectual. It is commonly added in the Gospels, that the 
individuals who were healed of their maladies did not 

1 John vi 15 2 Mark viii. 30 ; Luke ix. 21. 



PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 153 

heed them, but blazed abroad the fact of their miracu- 
lous cure. Since the injunctions imposing silence are 
authentic, the miracles, without which they are mean- 
ingless, must have been wrought. It is worthy of note, 
that, when the maniac of Gadara was restored to health, 
Jesus did not lay this commandment on him. He sent 
him to his home, bidding him tell his friends of his 
experience of the mercy of God. 1 Connected with the 
narratives of miracles, both before and just after in 
the same chapter, 2 we find the usual charge not to tell 
what had been done. Why not in this instance of the 
madman of Gadara ? The reason would seem to have 
been, that, in that region where Jesus had not taught, 
and where he did not purpose to remain, the same dan- 
ger from publicity did not exist. To be sure, the man 
• was not told " to publish " the miracle " in Decapolis," as 
he proceeded to do ; but no pains were taken to prevent 
him from doing this. He was left at liberty to act in this 
respect as he pleased. The evangelist does not call our 
attention in any way to this peculiarity of the Gadara 
miracle. It is thus an undesigned confirmation of the 
truth of the narrative, and at the same time of the 
other narratives with which the injunction to observe 
silence is connected. 

III. Cautions, plainly authentic, against an excessive 
esteem of miracles, are a proof that they were actually 
wrought. 

No one who falsely sets up to be a miracle-worker 
seeks to lower the popular esteem of miracles. Such 
a one never chides the wonder-loving spirit. The 
same is equally true of those who imagine or otherwise 
fabricate stories of miracles. The moods of mind out 
of which fictions of this kind are hatched are incom- 
i Mark v. 19. 2 Mark iii. 12, v. 43. 



154 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

patible with any thing like a disparagement of miracles. 
The tendency will be to make as much of them as pos- 
sible. Now, the Gospel records represent Christ as 
taking the opposite course : " Except ye see signs and 
wonders, ye will not believe." J This implies that there 
were higher grounds of faith. It is an expression of 
blame. " Believe me that I am in the Father, and the 
Father in me : or else believe me for the very works' 
sake." 2 That is, if you cannot take my word for it, 
then let the miracles convince you. It would almost 
seem that Christ performed his miracles under a pro- 
test. He refused to do a miracle where there was not 
a germ of faith beforehand. In the first three Gospels 
there is the same relative estimate of miracles as in the 
fourth. If men form an opinion about the weather 
by the looks of the sky, they ought to be convinced by 
"the signs of the times," in which, if the miracles are 
included, it is only as one element in the collective 
manifestation of Christ. 3 When the seventy disciples 
returned full of joy that they had not only been able to 
heal the sick, but also to deliver demoniacs from their 
distress, 4 — which had not been explicitly promised 
them when they went forth, — Jesus sympathized with 
their joy : he beheld before his mind's eye the swift 
downfall of the dominating spirit of evil, and he assured 
the disciples that further miraculous power should be 
given to them. But he added, " Notwithstanding, in 
this rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you ; 
but rather rejoice, because your names are written in 
heaven." They were not to plume themselves on the 
supernatural power exercised, or to be exercised, by 
them. They were not to make it a ground of self-con- 

i John iv. 48. 2 j onn x iv. 11. 8 Matt. xvi. 3. 

4 Such ia the force of the «ai (in the «ai ra Sai^ona, etc.)i Luke x. 17. 



PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 155 

gratulation. These statements of Jesus, be it ob- 
served, for the reasons stated above verify themselves 
as authentic. And they presuppose the reality of the 
miracles. They show, it may be added, that the disci- 
ples were trained by Jesus not to indulge a wonder- 
loving spirit, and thus guarded against this source of 
self-deception. 

IV. Teaching of Jesus which is evidently genuine 
is inseparable from certain miracles: in other words, 
the miracles cannot be dissected out of authentic teach- 
ing and incidents with which they are connected in the 
narrative. A few illustrations will prove this to be 
the case. 

(1) John the Baptist, being then in prison, sent two 
of his disciples to ask Jesus if he was indeed the 
Messiah. 1 A doubt had sprung up in his mind. This 
is an incident which nobody would have invented. In 
proof of this, it is enough to say that an effort has been 
made, by commentators who have caught up a sugges- 
tion of Origen, to explain away the fact. It has been 
conjectured that the message was probably to satisfy 
some of John's doubting disciples. There is not a 
word in the narrative to countenance this view. It is 
excluded by the message which the disciples were to 
carry from Christ to John : " Blessed is he whosoever 
shall not be offended in me." That is, blessed is the 
man who is not led to disbelieve because the course 
that I take does not answer to his ideal of the Messiah. 
There is no reason to think that John's mind was free 
from those more or less sensuous anticipations con- 
cerning Christ and his kingdom which the apostles, 
even after they had long been with Jesus, had not 
shaken off. He had foretold that the Messiah was to 

i Matt. xi. 4 ; Luke vii. 22. 



156 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

have a " fan in his hand," was to " gather his wheat 
into the garner," and to " burn up the chaff." 1 He was 
perplexed that Jesus took no more decisive step, that 
no great overturning had come. Was Jesus, after all, 
the Messiah himself, or a precursor ? If, in his prison 
there, the faith of John for the moment faltered, it was 
nothing worse than was true of Moses and Elijah, the 
greatest of the old prophets. The commendation of 
John which Jesus uttered in the hearing of the by- 
standers, immediately after he "had sent back the disci- 
ples, was probably designed to efface any impression 
derogatory to the Baptist which might have been left 
on their minds. This eulogy is another corroboration 
of the truth of the narrative. The same is true of his 
closing words : " Notwithstanding, he that is least in 
the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." They 
suggest the limit of John's insight into the nature of 
the kingdom. It is an unquestionable fact, therefore, 
that the inquiry was sent by John. Nor is it denied 
that Jesus returned the following answer : " Go and 
show John again those things which ye do hear and 
see : the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, 
the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are 
raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to 
them." The messengers were to describe to John the 
miracles which Jesus was doing, — Luke expressly adds 
that they themselves were witnesses of them, — and to 
assure him, that, in addition to these signs of the Messi- 
anic era which Isaiah had predicted, 2 to the poor the 
good news of the speedy advent of the kingdom were 
proclaimed. The message of Jesus had no ambiguity. 
It meant what the evangelists understood it to mean. 
The idea that he was merely using symbols to denote 

i Matt. iii. 12. 2 Isa. xxxv. 5, 6. 



PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 157 

the scriptural effect of his preaching is a mere subter- 
fuge of interpreters who cannot otherwise get rid of 
the necessity of admitting the fact of miracles. What 
sort of satisfaction would it have given John, in the 
state of mind in which he then was, to be assured sim- 
ply that the teaching of Jesus was causing great pleas- 
ure, and doing a great deal of good ? The same, or 
almost as much, he knew to be true of his own preach- 
ing. What he needed to learn, and what he did learn 
from his messengers, was, that the miracles of which he 
had heard were really done, and to be reminded of 
their significance. 

(2) The Gospels record several controversies of Jesus 
with over-rigid observers of the sabbath. They found 
fault with him for laxness in this particular. On one 
occasion he is said to have met a reproach of this kind 
with the retort, " Which of you shall have an ass or an 
ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him 
out on the sabbath day?" 1 It has been said of the 
books written by the companions of Napoleon at St. 
Helena, that it is not difficult to mark off what he 
really said ; his sayings having a recognizable style of 
their own. They who maintain that a like distinction 
is to be drawn in the Gospels among the reported 
sayings of Christ have to concede that he uttered the 
words above quoted. They are characteristic words. 
Even Strauss holds that they were spoken by him. If 
so, on what occasion? Luke says that it was on the 
occasion of Christ's healing a man who had the dropsy. 
There must have been a rescue from some evil. The 
evil must have been a very serious one : otherwise 
the parable of the ox or the ass falling into a pit would 
be out of place. What more proof is wanted of the 

1 Luke xiv. 5. 



158 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

correctness of the evangelic tradition, and thus of the 
miracle ? On another sabbath he is said to have cured 
a woman, who, from a muscular disorder, had been 
bowed down for eighteen years. His reply to his cen- 
sors is equally characteristic. 1 If the reply was made, 
the miracle that occasioned it was done. On still 
another occasion of the same kind he added to the 
illustration of a sheep falling into a pit the significant 
question, "How much, then, is a man better than a 
sheep ? " 2 If he uttered these words, then he healed 
a man with a withered hand. Unless he had just 
saved a man from some grievous peril, the question is 
meaningless. 

(8) In Matthew, Mark, and Luke it is related that 
Jesus was charged by the Pharisees with casting out 
demons through the help of Beelzebub their prince. 3 
The conversation that ensued upon this accusation is 
given. Jesus exposed the absurdity of the charge. 
It implied that Satan was working against himself, 
and for the subversion of his own kingdom : " If a 
house be divided against itself, that house cannot 
stand." 4 The conversation is stamped with internal 
marks of authenticity. The fact of this charge having 
been made against Christ was inwrought into the evan- 
gelic tradition. Now, the occasion of the debate was 
the cure of a man who was blind and dumb. The 
reader may consider demoniacal possession to be a lit- 
eral fact, or nothing more than a popular idea or theory : 
in either case the phenomena — epilepsy, lunacy, etc. — 
were what presented themselves to observation. It 
may be said that the Jews had exorcists. Jesus implies 
this when he asks, " By whom do your children " — 

i Luke xiii. 15. 2 Matt. xii. 12. 

8 Matt. xii. 22-31; Mark iii. 22-31; Luke xi. 14-23. « Mark iii. 25. 



PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 159 

that is, your disciples — " cast them out ? " Yet the 
cures of this sort which were effected by Christ must 
have included aggravated cases of mental and physical 
disorder, or they must have been wrought with a uni- 
formity which distinguished them from similar relief 
administered by others through the medium of prayer 
and fasting. There was an evident contrast between 
the power exerted by him in such cases and that with 
which the Pharisees were acquainted. This is implied 
in the astonishment which this class of miracles is rep- 
resented to have called forth. It is implied, also, in the 
fact that the accusation of a league with Satan was 
brought against him. They had to assert this, or else 
admit that it was " with the finger of God " that he 
cast out devils. 1 " He commanded the unclean spirits, 
and they obeyed him." 

(4) We find both in Matthew and Luke a passage 
in which woes are pronounced against certain cities of 
Galilee for remaining impenitent. 2 There is no reason 
for doubting that they were uttered by Jesus. There 
is a. question as to the time when they were uttered, 
unless it be assumed that they were spoken on two dif- 
ferent occasions; but that chronological question is 
immaterial here. The authenticity of the tradition is 
confirmed, if confirmation were required, by the men- 
tion of Bethsaida and Chorazin. No account of mira- 
cles wrought in these towns is embraced in either of 
the Gospels. 3 Had the passage been put into the 
mouth of Jesus falsely, there would naturally have 
been framed a narrative to match it. There would 
have stood in connection with it a description, briefer 

i Luke xi. 20. 2 Matt. xi. 20-25 ; Luke x. 13-16. 

3 The Bethsaida of Mark viii. 22 was another place, north-east of the 
lake. 



160 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

or longer, of miracles alleged to have been done in 
those towns. Moreover, "in that same hour," accord- 
ing to the first Gospel, Jesus uttered a fervent thanks- 
giving that the truth, hidden from the wise, had been 
revealed to the simple-hearted, 1 — a passage that needs 
no vindication of its authenticity. This outpouring 
of emotion is a natural sequel to the sorrowful impres- 
sion made on him by the obduracy of the Galilean 
cities. In Luke there is the same succession of moods 
of feeling, although the juxtaposition of the two pas- 
sages is not quite so close. Now, what is the ground of 
this condemnation of Capernaum, Chorazin, and Beth- 
saida ? It is " the mighty works " which they had wit- 
nessed. This privilege makes their guilt more heinous 
than that of Tyre and Sidon. It is the reference to 
the miracles which gives point to the denunciation. 

(5) The manner in which faith appears as the con- 
comitant and prerequisite of miracles is a strong confir- 
mation of the evangelical narratives. Faith is required 
of the apostles for the performance of miraculous works. 
They fail in the attempt from lack of faith. 2 They are 
told, that with faith nothing is beyond their power. 
But it is not their own strength which they are to 
exert. They lay hold of the power of God,- and in 
that power they control the forces of nature. So ap- 
plicants for miraculous help must come to Jesus with 
faith in his ability to relieve them. The exertion 
of his restorative power is in response to trust. The 
references to faith as thus connected with miracles are 
numerous. They are varied in form, obviously artless 
and uncontrived. They are an undesigned voucher for 
the truth of the narratives in which they mingle. 3 

i Matt. xi. 25-28. 2 Mark ix. 18; Luke ix. 40. 

8 See Matt. viii. 10 (Luke vii. 9), ix. 2 (Mark ii. 5 ; Luke v. 20), ix. 



PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 161 

(6) In connection with one miracle there is instruc- 
tion as to its design which it is difficult to believe did 
not emanate from Jesus. It is embedded in the heart 
of the narrative, as it was an essential part of the trans- 
action. 1 He is in a house at Capernaum surrounded 
by a crowd. A paralytic is brought by four men, and 
is let down through the roof, this being the only means 
of bringing him near Jesus. Seeing their faith, he said 
tenderly to the paralytic, " Son (or child), be of good 
courage : thy sins are forgiven thee." The disease, we 
are led to infer, was the result of sin, it may be of sen- 
suality. The sufferer's pain of heart Jesus first sought 
to assuage. It was the first step toward his cure. 
These words struck the scribes who heard them as blas- 
phemous. Jesus divined their thoughts, and asked 
them which is the easier to say, " Thy sins be forgiven 
thee," or " Arise and walk ? " If one presupposed 
divine power, so did the other. Then follows the state- 
ment : " That ye may know that the Son of man hath 
power on earth to forgive sins" — here he turned to 
the paralytic — " Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto 
thine house." The entire narrative is replete with 
the marks of truth ; but this one observation, defining 
the motive of the miracle, making it subordinate to the 
higher end of verifying his authority to grant spiritual 
blessings, carries in it evident marks of authenticity. 
Did not Jesus say this ? If he did, he performed the 
miracle. 

V. The fact that no miracles are attributed to John 
the Baptist should convince one that the miracles at- 
tributed to Jesus were actually performed. 

22 (Mark v. 34, x. 52), xvii. 20 (Luke xvii. 0) ; Luke viii. 48, xvii. 19 ; 
Matt. xv. 28 ; Luke vii. 50, xviii. 42 ; Mark v. 3G, ix. 23 ; Matt. viii. 13 ; 
John iv. 50, ix. 38 ; Acts iii. 16, xiv. 0. 

1 Mark ii. 10 : cf. Matt. ix. G : Luke v. 24. 



162 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

In the Gospels, John is regarded as a prophet inferior 
to no other. His career is described. Great stress is 
laid on his testimony to Jesus. Why, then, are no 
miracles ascribed to him ? They would have served to 
corroborate his testimony. If there was a propensity in 
the first disciples, or their successors, to imagine mira- 
cles where there were none, why are no fabrications of 
this sort interwoven with the story of John's preaching? 
They had before them the life of his prototype, Elijah, 
and the record of the miracles done by him. What 
(except a regard for truth) hindered them from min- 
gling in the story of the forerunner of Jesus occurrences 
equally wonderful ? Why do we not read that one day 
he responded to the entreaty of a poor blind man by 
restoring his sight, that on another occasion he gave 
back to a widow the life of her son, that at a certain 
time a woman who had been for years a helpless invalid 
was immediately cured by a word from the prophet, 
that the diseased were often brought to him by their 
friends to be healed ? The only answer, is that the 
Gospel narratives are not the product of imagination. 
They give the events that actually took place. 

VI. It is equally difficult for sceptical criticism to 
explain why no miracles are ascribed to Jesus prior to 
his public ministry. Why should the imagination of 
the early Christians have stopped short at his baptism? 
Why did not fancy run back, after the manner of the 
apocryphal fictions, over the period that preceded ? A 
definite date is assigned for the beginning of his miracu- 
lous agency. Fancy and fraud do not curb themselves 
in this way. 

VII. The persistence of the faith of the apostles in 
Jesus as the Messiah, and of his faith in himself, admits 
of no satisfactory explanation when the miracles are 
denied. 



PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 163 

How were the apostles to be convinced that he was 
the promised, expected Messiah ? What were the evi- 
dences of it? He took a course opposite to that which 
they expected the Messiah to take. He planned no 
political change. He enjoined meekness and patience. 
He held out to them the prospect of persecution and 
death as the penalty of adhering to him. Where was 
the national deliverance which they had confidently 
anticipated that the Messiah would effect? How in- 
tangible, compared with their sanguine hopes, was the 
good which he sought to impart ! Moreover, they heard 
his claims denied on every side. The guides of the 
people in religion scorned or denounced them. Had 
there been no exertions of power to impress the senses, 
and the mind through the senses, it is incredible that 
the apostles could have believed in him, and have clung 
to him, in the teeth of all the influences fitted to inspire 
distrust. We might ask how Jesus himself could have 
retained immovable the conviction that he was in truth 
the Messiah of God, if he found himself possessed of 
no powers exceeding those of the mortals about him. 
How could he have maintained this consciousness, with- 
out the least faltering, when he saw himself rejected by 
rulers and people, and at length forsaken by his timid 
disciples ? 

Strauss is, on the whole, the most prominent dis- 
believer in modern times who has undertaken to re- 
construct the gospel history, leaving out the miracles. 
His theory was, that the narratives of miracles are a 
mythology spontaneously spun out of the imagination 
of groups of early disciples. But what moved them to 
build up so baseless a fabric ? What was the idea that 
possessed the mind, and gave birth to its unconscious 
fancies ? Why, at the foundation of it all was the fixed 



164 THE GROUNDS OF THEIST1C AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

expectation that the Messiah must be a miracle-worker ? 
The predictions of the Old Testament and the example 
of the prophets required it. How was it, then, that, 
in the absence of this indispensable criterion of the 
Messianio office, these same disciples believed in Jesus ? 
How came he to believe in himself? To these ques- 
tions the author of the mythical theory could give no 
answer which does not subvert his own hypothesis. 
The same cause which by the supposition led to the 
imagining of miracles that were false must have pre- 
cluded faith, except on the basis of miracles that were 
true. 

VIII. In the evangelical tradition the miracles enter 
as potent causes into the nexus of occurrences. They 
are links which cannot be spared in the chain of events. 

Take, for example, the opening chapters of Mark, 
which most critics at present hold to be the oldest Gos- 
pel. There is an exceedingly vivid picture of the first 
labors of Jesus in Capernaum and its vicinity. His 
teaching, to be sure, thrilled his hearers : " He taught 
them as one that had authority." 1 But the intense ex- 
citement of the people was due even more to another 
cause. In the synagogue at Capernaum a demoniac 
interrupted him with loud cries, calling him " the Holy 
One of God." At the word of Jesus, after uttering one 
shriek, the frenzied man became quiet and sane. The 
mother of Peter's wife was raised from a sick-bed. 
Other miraculous cures followed. It was the effect 
of these upon the people that obliged him to rise long 
before dawn in order to anticipate their coming, and to 
escape to a retired place for prayer. It was a miracle 
wrought upon a leper that compelled Jesus to leave the 
city for " desert places," — secluded spots where the 

i Mark i. 22. 



PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 165 

people would not throng upon Mm in so great num- 
bers. 1 Very definite occurrences are traced to particu- 
lar causes, which are miraculous acts done by Christ. 
It was the raising of Lazarus that determined the 
Jewish rulers to apprehend Jesus, and put him to death. 
The fact that this event, in a record which contains so 
many unmistakably authentic details, is the point on 
which the subsequent history turns, forced upon Renan 
the conviction that there was an apparent miracle, — 
something that was taken for a miracle, — and this 
conviction he has not been able to persuade himself 
absolutely to relinquish. 2 

The miracle at Jericho, which is described, with some 
diversity in the circumstances, by three of the evangel- 
ists, Keim finds it impossible to resolve into a fiction. 
He refers to the fact that all of the first three Gospels 
record it. He adverts to the fresh and vivid character 
of the narratives. But the main consideration is the 
explanation afforded of the rising tide of enthusiasm in 
the people at this time, of which there is full proof. 
But Keim, still reluctant to admit the supernatural, 
alludes to the popular excitement as quickening " the 
vital and nervous forces," and so restoring the impaired 
or lost vision of the man healed. It is intimated that 
this access of nerve-force, coupled with his faith, may 
have effected the cure. 3 It is found necessary to revert 
to a method of explanation which German criticism 
had long ago tested and discarded. The point which 
concerns us here is the reality of the transaction as it 
appeared to the spectators. The physiological solution 
may pass for what it is worth. If ' cures had been 
effected in this way by Jesus, there would have been 

i Mark i. 35, v. 45. 2 Vie de Jesus (13me ed.), pp. 507, 514. 

8 Gescb. Jesu von Nazara, vol. iii. p. 53. 



166 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

conspicuous failures, as well as instances of success ; 
and how would these failures have affected the minds 
of the disciples and of other witnesses of them, not to 
speak of the mind of Jesus himself? The resurrection 
of Jesus, more than any other of the miracles, bridges 
over an otherwise impassable chasm in the course of 
events. We see the disciples, a company of disheart- 
ened mourners. Then we see them on a sudden trans- 
formed into a band of bold propagandists of the new 
faith, ready to lay down their lives for it. The resur- 
rection is the event which accounts for this marvellous 
change and for the spread of Christianity which fol- 
lows. But this event requires to be more thoroughly 
considered. 

IX. The proof of the crowning miracle of Christi- 
anity, the resurrection of Jesus, cannot be successfully 
assailed, even were the views of the sceptical school as 
to the origin of the Gospels well founded. 

As we stand for the moment on common ground with 
them, we cannot make use of such an incident as the 
doubt of Thomas and the removal of it, 1 although this 
incident, as well as various other portions of the fourth 
Gospel, may be historical, even if not John, but a later 
author, wrote the book. An uncertainty is thrown over 
circumstances relating to the intercourse of the disciples 
with Jesus after his death, which are found in the 
Gospels ; that is, prior to establishing the genuineness 
of the Gospels, it is open to question how far the details 
are faithfully transmitted from the witnesses. But, as 
regards the cardinal fact of the Gospel, we have precious 
evidence from an unimpeachable source. The Apostle 
Paul states with precision the result of his inquiries 
on the subject. 2 There were five interviews of the dis- 

i John xx. 24-30. 2 1 Cor. xv. 4-8. 






PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 167 

ciples with the risen Jesus, besides the miracle on the 
journey to Damascus. Paul was converted A.D. 35, 
four years after the crucifixion. In A.D. 38 he went 
to Jerusalem, and staid a fortnight with Peter. He 
was conversant with the apostles and other disciples. 
He knew what their testimony was. From his explicit 
statement, and from other perfectly conclusive evidence, 
it is certain that the first of the supposed appearances 
of Christ to the disciples was on the morning of the 
next Sunday after his death. It was on "the third 
day." 1 Then it was that they believed themselves to 
have irresistible proof that he had risen from the tomb. 
Ever after, this was the principal fact which they pro- 
claimed, the main foundation of their faith and hope. 
The question is, Were they, or were they not, deceived ? 
Is the church founded on a fact, or on a delusion ? Did 
Christianity, which owes its existence and spread to 
this immovable conviction on the part of the apostles, 
spring from either a fraud or a dream ? The notion 
which once had advocates, that Christ did not really 
die, but revived from a swoon, is given up. How could 
he have gone through the crucifixion without dying ? 
What would have been his physical condition, even if 
a spark of life had remained ? If he did not die then, 
when did he die ? Did he and the apostles agree to pre- 
tend that he had died ? The slander of the Jews, that 
some of the disciples stole his body, is not deserving 
of consideration. Why should men make up a story 
which was to bring them no benefit, but only contempt, 
persecution, and death? The question what became 
of the body of Jesus is one which disbelievers in the 

1 1 Cor. xv. 4, cf. Matt. xvi. 21, xvii. 23, xx. 19, xxvii. 63, xxviii. 
1 ; Mark viii. 31, ix. 31, xiv. 58, xv. 29, xvi. 2, 9 ; Luke ix. 22, xiii. 32, 
xviii. 33, xxiv. 1, 7, 21, 46 ; John ii. 19, xx. 1, 19, 26. 



168 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

resurrection do not satisfactorily answer. It is not 
doubted that the tomb was found empty. Jewish ad- 
versaries had the strongest reason for producing the 
body if they knew where it was. That would have 
destroyed the apostles' testimony in a moment. 

The only hypothesis which has any plausibility at 
the present day, in opposition to the Christian faith, is 
the " vision-theory." The idea of it is, that the apos- 
tles mistook mental impressions for actual perceptions. 
Their belief in the resurrection was the result of hal- 
lucination. Some would hold that Christ really mani- 
fested himself to them in a miraculous way, but to 
their souls only : he did not come to them visibly and 
tangibly. Of this theory, especially in the first form, 
it is to be said, that responsibility for the delusion sup- 
posed comes back upon the founder of Christianity 
himself. Whoever thinks that the disciples were self- 
deceived, as Schleiermacher has well said, not only at- 
tributes to them a mental imbecility which would make 
their entire testimony respecting Christ untrustworthy, 
but implies, that, when Christ chose such witnesses, he 
did not know what was in man. Or, if Christ will- 
ingly permitted or led them to mistake an inward im- 
pression for actual perceptions, he is himself the author 
of error, and forfeits our moral respect. 1 But the vision- 
theory is built up on false assumptions, and signally 
fails to explain the phenomena in the case. I shall not 
here pause to examine the affirmation of Paul, that 
he had personally seen Christ. This must be observed, 
that he distinguishes that first revelation of Christ to 
him — which stopped him in his career as an incpaisi- 
tor, and made him a new man in his convictions and 
aims — from subsequent " visions and revelations." 2 

i Christlicher Glaube, vol. ii. p. 88. 2 2 Cor. xii. 1 ; 1 Cor. ii. 10. 



PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 169 

They were separated in time. It was not on them that 
Paul professed to found his claim to be an apostle. He 
refers to them for another purpose. The words that 
he heard in a moment of ecstasy — whether " in the 
body or out of the body " he could not tell — he never 
even repeated. 1 That sight of Jesus which was the 
prelude of his conversion he gives as the sixth and last 
of his appearances to the apostles. It was objective, 
a disclosure to the senses. It was such a perception 
of Christ, that his resurrection was proved by it, — a 
fact with which the resurrection of believers is declared 
to be indissolubly connected. 2 Attempts have been 
made to account for Paul's conversion by referring it to 
a mental crisis induced by secret misgivings, and lean- 
ings toward the faith which he was striving to destroy. 
Some have brought in a thunder-clap or a sunstroke to 
help on the effect of the struggle supposed to be taking 
place within his soul. One trouble with this psycho- 
logical explanation of the miracle is, that the assump- 
tion of previous doubts and of remorseful feelings is 
not only without historical warrant, but is directly in 
the teeth of Paul's own assertions. 3 It is not true, 
however, that Paul implies in the least that the appear- 
ances of the risen Christ to the other apostles were ex- 
actly similar to Christ's appearance to him on the road 
to Damascus. His claim was simply that he, too, had 
seen Christ. The circumstances might be wholly dif- 
ferent in his case. Jewish Christians who were hostile 
to Paul made a point of the difference between his 
knowledge of Christ through visions and the sort of 



l 2 Cor. xii. 4, cf. Keim, vol. iii. p. 583, n. 1. 2 1 Cor. xv. 12-21. 

8 Before discussing fully the subject of Paul's conversion, it is 
requisite to examine the question of the authorship and credibility of 
the Acts. 



170 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

knowledge vouchsafed to the other apostles. The risen 
Christ whom these saw did not speak to them from 
heaven. They believed him to be with them on the 
earth. He had not yet ascended. His real or supposed 
presence in the body with them was an essential part 
of what they related. Without it, the whole idea of 
the ascension was meaningless. We might go farther, 
and say, that, in the absence of decisive proof to the 
contrary, it is to be presumed that the accounts which 
the apostles were in the habit of giving of their inter- 
views with the risen Jesus — facts so immeasurably 
important to themselves and others — are substantially 
preserved in the Gospels. Why should it be doubted 
that at least the essential nature of these interviews, 
or of their impression of them, about which the Apostle 
Paul had so particularly inquired, is set forth by the 
four evangelists ? 

But the details in the Gospel narratives we leave 
out of account, for the present. The main facts indis- 
putably embraced in the testimony of the apostles are 
sufficient. There are criteria of hallucination. If there 
were not, we should on all occasions be at a loss to 
know when to credit witnesses, or even to trust our 
own senses. We have to consider, in the first place, 
the state of mind into which the apostles were thrown 
by the crucifixion. It was a state of extreme sorrow 
and dejection. They were struck with dismay. Their 
hopes were crushed. Whoever has seen the dead 
Christ in the famous painting of Rubens at Antwerp 
can imagine the feeling of the disciples when they 
looked on the terrible reality. How was it possible 
for them within a few days — within two days, in the 
case of some, if not of all — to recover from the 
shock? How was it possible that in so short a time 



PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 171 

joy took the place of grief arid consternation ? Whence 
came the sudden revival of faith, and with it the cour- 
age to go forth and testify, at the risk of their own 
lives, that Jesus was indeed the Messiah ? The glow- 
ing faith, rising to an ecstasy of peace and assurance, 
out of which hallucination might spring, did not exist. 
The necessary materials of illusion were absolutely 
wanting. There was no long interval of silent brood- 
ing over the Master's words and worth. The time was 
short, — a few days. Even then there are no traces 
of any fever of enthusiasm. The interviews with the 
risen Christ are set down in the Gospels in a brief, 
calm way, without any marks of bewildering agitation. 
No, the revulsion of feeling must have come from with- 
out. The event that produced it was no creation of the 
apostles' minds. It took them by surprise. Secondly, 
the number and variety of the persons — five hundred 
at once — who constitute the witnesses heighten the 
difficulty in the way of the hallucination-theory. Under 
circumstances so gloomy and disheartening, how were 
so many persons — comprising, as they must have com- 
prised, all varieties of temperament — transported by 
the same enthusiasm to such a pitch of bewilderment as 
to confound a mental image of Christ with the verita- 
ble, present reality ? But, thirdly, a greater difficulty 
lies in the limited number of the alleged appearances 
of Jesus, considering the state of mind which must.be 
assumed to have existed if the hallucination-theory is 
adopted. Instead of five, the number of those known 
to Paul, there would have been a multitude. This the 
analogy of religious delusions authorizes us to assert. 
If the five hundred collectively imagined themselves to 
see Christ, a great portion of them would individually, 
before and after, have imagined the same thing. The 



172 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

limited, carefully marked, exactly recollected number 
of the appearances of Jesus is a powerful argument 
against the theory of illusion. Fourthly, connected with 
this last consideration is another most impressive fact. 
There was a limitation of time as well as of number. 
The appearances of Jesus, whatever they were, ceased 
in a short period. Why did they not continue longer? 
There were visions of one kind and another afterward. 
Disbelievers point to these as a proof of the apostles' 
credulity. Be this as it may, the question recurs, Why 
were there no more visions of the risen Jesus to be 
placed in the same category with those enumerated by 
Paul ? Stephen's vision was of Christ in the heavenly 
world. In the persecutions recorded in Acts, when 
martyrs were perishing, why were there no Christopha- 
nies ? There is not a solitary case of an alleged actual 
appearance of Jesus on the earth to disciples, after the 
brief period which is covered by the instances recorded 
by Paul and the evangelists. There were those distinct 
occurrences, standing by themselves, definitely marked, 
beginning at a certain time, ending at a certain time, — 
so many, and no more. 

We know what the mood of the apostles was from 
the time of these alleged interviews with the risen 
Christ. They set about the work of preaching the 
gospel of the resurrection, and of founding the church. 
There was no more despondency, no more faltering. 
It is undeniable that they are characterized by sobriety 
of mind, and by a habit of reflection, without which, 
indeed, the whole movement would quickly have come 
to an end. The controversies attending the martyrdom 
of Stephen were not more than two years after the death 
of Jesus. Then followed the mission to the Jews and 
to the heathen, the deliberations respecting the position 



PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 173 

to be accorded to the Gentile converts, and the whole 
work of organizing and training the churches. To be 
sure, they claimed to be guided by the Divine Spirit. 
Light was imparted to them, from time to time, through 
visions. Take what view one will of these phenomena, 
it is plain, that, on the the whole, a discreet, reflective 
habit characterized the apostles. This is clear enough 
from the Acts, and from the Epistles, on any view 
respecting the credibility of these books which critics 
are disposed to take. Now, this reasonableness and 
sobriety belonged to the apostles from the first, or it 
did not. If it did, it excludes the supposition of that 
abandonment to dreamy emotion and uninquiring revery 
which the hallucination-theory implies. If it did not, 
then it behooves the advocates of this hypothesis to tell 
what it was that suddenly effected such a change in 
them. What broke up, on a sudden, the mood of ex- 
citement and flightiness which engendered notions of 
a fictitious resurrection ? How was a band of religious 
dreamers, not gradually, but in a very short space of 
time, transformed into men of discretion and good 
sense? Why did these devotees not go on with their 
delicious dreams, in which they believed Jesus to be 
visibly at their side ? The sudden, final termination, 
without any outward cause producing it, of an absorb- 
ing religious enthusiasm like that which is imputed 
to the apostles and to the five hundred disciples, is 
without a parallel in the history of religion. 

It is the force of these considerations which compels 
Keim to give up the illusion-theory. "It must be ac- 
knowledged," he says, "that this theory, which has 
lately become popular, is only an hypothesis that ex- 
plains some things, but does not explain the main 
thing, nay, deals with the historical facts from distorted 



174 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

and untenable points of view." 1 "If the visions are 
not a human product, not self-produced ; if they are not 
the blossom and fruit of a bewildering over-excite- 
ment; if they are something strange, mysterious; if 
they are accompanied at once with astonishingly clear 
perceptions and resolves, — then it remains to fall back 
on a source of them not yet named : it is God and the 
glorified Christ." 2 Thus the cessation of the visions 
at a definite point can be accounted for. The extrane- 
ous power that produced them ceased to do so. It was, 
in truth, the personal act and self-revelation of the de- 
parted Jesus. Without this supernatural manifestation 
of himself, to convince his disciples that he still lived 
in a higher form of being, his cause would, in all proba- 
bility, have come to an end at his death. Faith in him 
as Messiah would have vanished, the disciples would 
have gone back to Judaism and the synagogue, and 
the words of Jesus would have been buried in the dust 
of oblivion. 3 A powerful impression, not originating in 
themselves, but coming from without, from Christ him- 
self, alone prevented this catastrophe. The admission 
of a miracle is fairly extorted from this writer by the 
untenableness of every other solution that can be 
thought of. At the end of a work which is largely 
taken up with attempts, direct or indirect, to disprove 
supernatural agency, Keim finds himself driven by the 
sheer pressure of the evidence to assert its reality, and 
to maintain that the very survival of Christianity in 
the world after the death of Jesus depended on it. If 
he still stumbles at the particular form of the miracle 
which the testimony obliges us to accept, yet the mira- 
cle of a self-manifestation of Jesus to the apostles he 
is constrained to presuppose. 

1 Geach. Jesu von Nazara, vol. iii. p. 600. 2 Ibid., p. G02. 

8 Ibid., p. 605. 



PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 175 

On a question of this kind historical evidence can go 
no farther. When it is declared by a large number of 
witnesses who have no motive to deceive, that a certain 
event took place before their eyes, and when the circum- 
stances forbid the hypothesis of self-deception, there 
is no alternative but to admit the reality of the fact. 
The proof is complete. The fact may still be denied 
by an unreflecting incredulity. It may be affirmed to 
be impossible, or to be under any circumstances incapa- 
ble of proof. Against such a position, testimony, his- 
torical proof of any sort, is powerless. The immovable 
faith of the apostles that Jesus " showed himself alive 
to them " is a fact that nobody questions. Without 
that faitli, Christianity would have died at its birth. 
Whoever denies credit to their testimony ought to ex- 
plain in some rational way the origin, strength, and 
persistence of that faith. But this, as experiment has 
proved, cannot be done. 

X. The concessions which are extorted by the force 
of the evidence from the ablest disbelievers in the mira- 
cles are fatal to their own cause. 

At the beginning of this century the theory of 
Paulus, the German Euemerus, was brought forward. 
It was the naturalistic solution. The stories of mira- 
cles in the New Testament were based on facts which 
were misunderstood. There were actual occurrences ; 
but they were looked at through a mist of superstitious 
belief, and thus misinterpreted and magnified. Jesus 
had a secret knowledge of potent remedies, and the 
cures which he effected by the application of them 
passed for miracles. The instances of raising the dead 
were cases of only apparent death. For example, Jesus 
saw that the son of the widow of Nain was not really 
dead. Perhaps the young man opened his eyes, or 



176 THE GROUNDS OF TIIEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

stirred, and thus discovered to Jesus that he was alive. 
Jesus mercifully saved him from a premature burial. 
lie did not think himself called upon to correct the 
mistaken judgments of the disciples and of others, who 
attributed his beneficent acts to preternatural power. 
He allowed himself in a tacit accommodation to the 
vulgar ideas in these matters. This theory was seri- 
ously advocated in learned tomes. It was applied in 
detail in elaborate commentaries on the Gospels. 

Strauss simply echoed the general verdict to which 
all sensible and right-minded people had arrived, when 
he scouted this attempted explanation of the Gospel 
narratives, and derided the exegesis by which it was 
supported. The theory of Paulus made the apostles 
fools, and Christ a Jesuit. But the hypothesis which 
Strauss himself brought forward, if less ridiculous, was 
not a whit more tenable. Unconscious myths generated 
by communities of disciples who mistook their common 
fancies for facts; myths generated by bodies of disci- 
ples cut off from the care and oversight of the apostles 
who knew better ; by disciples, who, nevertheless, suc- 
ceeded in substituting in all the churches their fictitious 
narrative, in the room of the true narrative, which was 
given by the apostles, — here were improbabilities which 
prevented the mythical theory from gaining a foothold 
at the bar of historical criticism. It was impossible, as 
it has been remarked above, to see how the faith of the 
myth-making division of disciples was produced at the 
start. No such class of disciples, cut off from the super- 
intendence of the apostles, existed. If it be supposed 
that such a class of disciples did exist, the agents who 
planted Christianity in the towns and cities of the 
Roman Empire were not from these, but were the apos- 
tles and their followers. And then, how could the 



PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 177 

established tradition as to Christ's life be superseded 
by another narrative, emanating from some obscure 
source, and presenting a totally diverse conception from 
that which the apostles, or their pupils, were teaching ? 
So the mythical theory went the way of the naturalistic 
scheme of Paulus. Seeing his failure, Strauss after- 
ward tried to change the definition of myth, and to 
introduce an element of conscious invention into the 
idea ; but in so doing he destroyed the work of his own 
hands. 

Renan has undertaken, in a series of volumes, to 
furnish upon the naturalistic basis an elaborate expla- 
nation of the origin of Christianity. In the successive 
editions of his Life of Jesus he has considered and re- 
considered the problem of the miracles. What has he 
to say ? He tells us that miracles at that epoch were 
thought indispensable to the prophetic vocation. The 
legends of Elijah and Elisha were full of them. It was 
taken for granted that the Messiah would perform 
many. 1 Jesus believed that he had a gift of healing. 
He acquired repute as an exorcist. 2 Nay, it is undenia- 
ble that " acts which would now be considered fruits of 
illusion or hallucination had a great place in the life of 
Jesus." 3 The four Gospels, he holds, render this evident. 
Renan sees that there is no way of escaping the conclu- 
sion that miracles seemed to be wrought, and that they 
were a very marked feature in the history as it actually 
occurred. Those about Jesus — the entourage — were 
probably more struck with the miracles than with any 
thing else. 4 How shall this be accounted for? Illusion 
in the mind of Jesus, an exaggerated idea of his powers, 
will go a little way toward a solution of the question, 

i Vie de Jesus, p. 2G6, cf. p. 271. 2 Ibid., p. 273. 

8 Ibid., p. 277. 4 Ibid., p. 2G9. 



178 THE GROUNDS OF TIIEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

but does nut suffice. It must be held that the part of a 
thaumaturgist was forced on Jesus by the craving of 
disciples and the demand of current opinion. He had 
either to renounce his mission, or to comply. 1 His mira- 
cles were " a violence done him by his age, a concession 
which a pressing necessity wrested from him." 2 There 
• were miracles, or transactions taken for miracles, in 
which he consented "to play a part." 3 He was reluc- 
tant ; it was distasteful to him : but he consented. Then 
come M. Renan's apologies for Jesus. Sincerity is not 
a trait of Orientals. We must not be hard upon decep- 
tion of this sort. We must conquer our "repugnances." 
" We shall have a right to be severe upon such men 
when we have accomplished as much with our scruples 
as they with their lies." In that impure city of Jeru- 
salem, Jesus was no longer himself. His conscience, 
by the fault of others, had lost its original clearness. 
He was desperate, pushed to the extremity, no longer 
master of himself. Death must come to restore him to 
liberty, to deliver him from a part which became every 
hour more exacting, more difficult to sustain. 4 

In plain English, Jesus was an impostor, unwillingly, 
yet really and consciously. From enthusiasm it went 
on to knavery ; for pious fraud, notwithstanding M. 
Renan's smooth deprecation, is fraud. The Son of 
man sinks out of sight, with his conscience clouded, 
his character fallen. M. Renan's excuses for him are 
themselves immoral. Even his apologies for Judas are 
less offensive. 

This defamation of Jesus is for the theory of disbelief 
a reductio ad absurdum. The wise and good of all ages 
are told that their veneration is misplaced. Jesus was 

i Vie de Jesus, p. 267. 2 Ibid., p. 279. 

8 Ibid., p. 513. * Ibid., p. 375. 



PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 179 

not the "holy one." There is nothing even heroic in 
him. He is swept away by a popular current, giving 
up his rectitude, giving up his moral discrimination. 
He is made up in equal parts of the visionary and the 
deceiver. By his moral weakness he brings himself into 
such an entanglement, that to escape from it by death 
is a piece of good fortune. He to whom mankind have 
looked up as to the ideal of holiness turns out to be, 
first a dreamer, then a fanatic and a charlatan. It is 
proved that a clean thing can come out of an unclean. 
Out of so muddy a fountain there has flowed so pure 
a stream. Courage, undeviating truth, steadfast loyalty 
to right against all seductions, in all these Christian 
ages have sprung from communion with a dishonest 
man, who obeyed the maxim that the end justifies the 
means. For no gloss of rhetoric can cover up the mean- 
ing that lies underneath M. Renan's fine phrases. When 
the light coating of French varnish is rubbed off, it is a 
picture of degrading duplicity that is left. 

This is the last word of scientific infidelity. Let the 
reader mark the point to which his attention is called. 
On any rational theory about the date and authorship 
of the Gospels, it is found impossible to doubt that 
facts supposed at the time of their occurrence to be 
miraculous were plentiful in the life of Jesus. The 
advocates of atheism are driven to the hypothesis of 
hallucination with a large infusion of pious fraud. 
There is no fear that such a theory will prevail. No 
being could exist with the heterogeneous, discordant 
qualities attributed by Ren an to Christ. Were such 
a being possible, the new life of humanity could never 
have flowed from so defiled a source. 

The arguments which this chapter contains will not 



180 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

convince an atheist. One who denies that God is a 
personal being is, in direct proportion to the force of 
his conviction, debarred from believing in a miracle. 
He will either seek for some other explanation of the 
phenomena, or leave the problem unsolved. Secondly, 
these arguments, it is believed, separately taken, are 
valid ; but they are also to be considered together. Their 
collective strength is to be estimated. If the single 
rod could be broken, the same may not be true of the 
bundle. Thirdly, it is not to be forgotten that demon- 
strative reasoning on questions of historical fact is pre- 
cluded. He who requires a coercive argument where 
probable reasoning alone is applicable must be left in 
doubt or disbelief. In the strongest conceivable case 
of probable reasoning there is always a possibility of the 
opposite opinion being true. Enough that reasonable 
doubt is excluded. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE GOSPELS A FAITHFUL RECORD OF THE TESTIMONY 
GIVEN BY THE APOSTLES. 

What did the apostles testify ? Is their testimony 
to be relied on ? In the historical inquiry which we are 
pursuing, these are the main questions. The subject 
of the authorship and date of the Gospels concerns us 
from its relation to the first of these points. Only by 
investigating the origin of the Gospels can we ascer- 
tain whether these writings faithfully present the testi- 
mony given by the apostles. But proof, from whatever 
quarter it may come, that such is the fact, even though 
not bearing directly on the question by what particular 
authors the Gospels were written, it is pertinent to 
adduce. And proof of this character, it will be seen, 
is not wholly wanting. 

There is one remark to be made prior to entering on 
the discussion before us. The circumstance that the 
Gospels contain accounts of miracles gives rise, in some 
minds, to a conscious or secret disinclination to refer 
these writings to the apostles, or to regard them as a 
fair and true representation of their testimony. But 
this bias is unreasonable. Apart from the general con- 
sideration, that, if there is to be revelation, there must 
be miracle, it has been already proved that accounts of 
miracles, and of some of the very miracles recorded in 
these histories, did enter into the narratives of the 

181 



182 THE GItOUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

ministry of Jesus which the apostles were accustomed 
to give. 

The universal reception of the four Gospels as hav- 
ing exclusive authority, by the churches in the closing 
part of the second century, requires to be accounted 
for if their genuineness is denied. The literature which 
has survived from the latter part of the first century 
and the beginning of the second is scanty and frag- 
mentary. But when we come out into the light in the 
last quarter of the second century, we find the Gospels 
of the canon in full possession of the field. We hear, 
moreover, from all quarters, the declaration that these 
are the Gospels which have come down from the 
apostles. We are given to understand that their genu- 
ineness had never been questioned in the churches. 
There was no centralized organization, be it remem- 
bered, to pass judgment on their claims. They owed 
this universal acceptance to the concerted action of no 
priesthood, to the decree of no council. The simple 
fact is, that these books — ascribed respectively to four 
authors, two of whom were apostles, and the other two 
were not — were recognized by the Christian churches 
everywhere, and, it was alleged, had been recognized 
without dispute. Here is Irenams, born as early as A.D. 
130 — probably a number of years earlier 1 — in Asia 
Minor, bishop of the church of Lyons from A.D. 178 to 
202 ; an upright man, in a conspicuous position, and 
witli ample means of acquiring a knowledge of the 
churches in Asia Minor and Italy, as well as in Gaul. 

1 Tillemont, and Lightfoot (Cont. Review, August, 1876, p. 415) fix 
the date of Irenseus' birth at A.D. 120 ; Ropes (Bib. Sacra, April, 1877, 
pp. 288 seq.), at A.D. 126; so Hilgenfeld. But Zalm argues ably (Hcrzog 
u. Plitt's Real. Encycl., vii. b°>4 seq.) for an earlier date, A.D. 115 ; with 
whom agrees Harnack, Die Uberlieferung d. griechischen Apologg. d. 
2tu Jahrh., p. 204. 



THE GOSPELS A FAITHFUL RECORD. 188 

In defending Christian truth against the grotesque 
speculations of the Gnostics, he is led to make his ap- 
peal, at the beginning of the third book of his treatise, 
to the Scriptures. This leads him to present an account 
of the composition of the Gospels, — how Matthew pub- 
lished " a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their 
own language ; " Mark put in writing " the things that 
were preached by Peter ; " Luke, " the attendant of 
Paul," wrote the third Gospel ; and " afterwards, John, 
the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned on his breast 
— he again put forth his Gospel while he abode at 
Ephesus in Asia." 1 These Gospels, and no others, he 
tells us, the churches acknowledge. Fully to illustrate 
how Ireneeus constantly assumes the exclusive authority 
of the Gospels of the canon would require us to trans- 
fer to these pages no small part of his copious work. 
Passing over the sea to Alexandria, we find Clement, 
who was born probably at Athens, certainly not later 
than A.D. 160, and was at the head of the catechetical 
school in the city of his adoption from A.D. 190 to 203, 
having previously travelled in Greece, Italy, Syria, and 
Palestine. 2 Referring to a statement in an apocryphal 
Gospel, he remarks that it is not found " in the four 
Gospels which have been handed down to us." 3 In an- 
other place he states the order in which these Gospels 
were written as he had learned it from " the oldest 
presbyters." 4 Then, from the church of North Africa 
we have the emphatic affirmations of Tertullian (born 
about A.D. 160) to the sole authority of the four Gos- 
pels, which were written by apostles and by apostolic 
men, their companions. 5 In the churches founded by 

i Adv. Hrcr., III. i. 1. 2 Euseb., H. E., v. 11. 

3 Strom., iii. 55:3 (ed. Potter). 

4 tS>v avexaOev Trp<-<r@vT<ipu>v, Euseb., H. E., vi. 14. 6 Adv. Marc, iv. 2-6. 



184 THE GROUNDS OF TIIEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

the apostles, and by the churches in fellowship with 
them, he asserts, the Gospel of Luke had been received 
since its first publication. " The same authority of 
the apostolic churches," he adds, " will also support the 
other Gospels," of which Matthew, Mark, and John 
were the authors. The Muratorian canon, of Roman 
origin, the date of which is not far from A.D. 170, is 
a fragment which begins in the middle of a sentence. 
That sentence, from its resemblance to a statement 
made by an earlier writer, Papias, respecting Mark, as 
well as from what immediately follows in the document 
itself, evidently relates to this evangelist. This broken 
sentence is succeeded by an account of the composition 
of Luke, which is designated as the third Gospel, and 
then of John. In Syria, the Peshito, the Bible of the 
ancient Syrian churches, having its origin at about 
the same time as the Muratorian canon, begins with the 
four Gospels. The canon of Scripture was then in 
process of formation ; and the absence from the Peshito 
of the second and third Epistles of John, second Peter, 
Jude, and Revelation, — books which were disputed in 
the ancient church, — is a proof at once of the antiquity 
of that version and of the value of the testimony given 
by it to the universal reception of the Gospels. 

It must be borne in mind, that the Fathers who have 
been named above are here referred to, not for the value 
of their opinion as individuals in regard to the au- 
thorship of the Gospels, but as witnesses for the foot- 
ing which they had in the churches. These Christian 
societies now encircled the Mediterranean. They were 
scattered over the Roman Empire from Syria to Spain. 1 

1 There were Christians in Spain (Irenams, Adv. Hser., i. 10, 2; Ter- 
tullian, Adv. Judreos, c. 7). If, as is probable, Spain is designated by 
the to ripiia t^s Svaem of Clement of Rome (Ep. v.), St. Paul visited 



THE GOSPELS A FAITHFUL RECORD. 185 

No doubt the exultation of the Fathers of the second 
century over the rapid spread and the prospects of 
Christianity led to hyperbole in describing the progress 
it had made. 1 But, making all due allowance for rhe- 
torical warmth, it is to be remembered, that, in writing 
for contemporaries, it would have been folly for them 
intentionally to indulge in misstatement in a matter 
of statistics with which their readers were as well ac- 
quainted as they were themselves. Christians had 
become numerous enough to excite anxiety more and 
more in the rulers of the empire. The question to be 
answered is, how this numerous, widely dispersed body 
had been led unanimously to pitch upon these four nar- 
ratives as the sole authorities for the history of Jesus. 
For what reasons had they adopted, nemine contradi- 
cente, these four Gospels exclusively, one of which was 
ascribed to Matthew, a comparatively obscure apostle, 
and two others to Luke and Mark, neither of whom 
belonged among the Twelve ? 

But the situation of these Fathers personally, as it 
helps us to determine the value of their judgment on 
the main question, is worth considering. Irenseus has 
occasion, in connection with the passage already cited 
from him, to dwell on the tradition respecting the 
teaching of the apostles which is preserved in the vari- 
ous churches founded by them. Of these churches he 
says, that it is easy to give the list of their bishops back 

that country. See Bishop Lightfoot's note (The Epp. of Clement of 
Rome, p. 4!)). 

1 Tertullian (Adv. Judreos, c. 7; Apol., c. 07), Irenaeus (Adv. Hser., 
i. 10, 1, 2; iii. 4, 1), cf. Justin (Dial., c. 117). For Gibhon's comments on 
these statements, see Decline and Fall, etc., chap. xv. (Smith's ed., ii. 
213, n. 177). Gibbon refers to Origen's remark (Contra Cels., viii. 60), 
that the Christians are " very few " comparatively ; but he omits another 
passage (e. ix.) of the same work, in which Origen refers to them as a 
"multitude," of all ranks. 



186 TIIE GROUNDS OF TIIEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

to foundation. By way of example, lie states the suc- 
cession of the Roman bishops. In these lists, as given 
by the ancient writers, there will be some discrepancies 
as to the earliest names, owing chiefly to the fact, that, 
in the time before episcopacy was fully developed, lead- 
ing presbyters, and not always the same persons, would 
be set down in the catalogues. 1 But a person who is 
familiar now with any particular church in whose his- 
tory he has felt much interest will have little difficulty 
in recounting the succession of its pastors extending 
back for a century, and will not be ignorant of any very 
remarkable events which have occurred in its affairs 
during that period. Moreover, Irenseus was acquainted 
with individuals who had been taught by John and by 
other apostles. He had known in his childhood Poly- 
carp, whose recollections of the Apostle John were fresh. 2 
He had conferred with " elders " — that is, venerated 
leaders in the church, of an earlier day — who had been 
pupils of men whom the apostles had instructed, and 
some of whom had sat at the feet of the apostles them- 
selves. 3 Of one of these "elders" in particular he makes 
repeated mention, whose name is not given, but whom in 
one place he styles "apostolorum discipulus." 4 Pothi- 
nus, whom Irenajus succeeded at Lyons, was thrown into 
prison in the persecution under Marcus Aurelius, A.D. 
177, and died two days after, being past ninety years old. 
Pothinus was probably from Asia Minor, whence the 
church at Lyons was planted. His memory ran back 
beyond the beginning of the century. He is one of many 
who had numbered among their acquaintances younger 

1 Gieseler's Church History, I. i. 3, § 34, n. 10. 

2 Adv. Hier., iii. 3, 4; Epist. ad Flor. 

a Adv. Hasr., ii. 22, 5; iii. 1, 1; iii. 3, 4; v. 30, 1; v. 33, 3; v. 33, 4; cf. 
Euseb., H. E., iii. 23, iv. 14, v. 8. 
4 Adv. Hier., iv. 32, 1. 



THE GOSPELS A FAITHFUL RECORD. 187 

contemporaries of apostles. Clement of Alexandria was 
a pupil of Pantgenus, who had founded the catechetical 
school there shortly after the middle of the second 
century. In all of the oldest churches there were per- 
sons who were separated by only one link from apostles. 
The attempt has often been made to discredit the 
testimony of Irenseus by reference to a passage which 
really strengthens it. After asserting that there are 
four Gospels and no more, he fancifully refers to the 
analogy of the four winds, four divisions of the earth, 
four faces of the cherubim, four covenants, etc. 1 Says 
Mr. Froude, " That there were four true evangelists, 
and that there could be neither more nor less than four, 
Irenaeus had persuaded himself, because there were four 
winds or spirits," etc. 2 It is plain to every reader of 
Irenseus, that his belief in the four Gospels is founded 
on the witness given by the churches and by well-in- 
formed individuals, to their authenticity ; and that these 
analogies merely indicate how firmly established the 
authority of the Gospels was in his own mind and in 
the minds of all Christian people. It was something 
as well settled as the cosmical system. If some enthu- 
siast for the Hanoverian house were to throw out the 
suggestion that there must be four, and only four, 
Georges, because there are four quarters of the globe, 
four winds, etc., Mr. Froude would hardly announce 
that the man's conviction of the historic fact that those 
four kings have ruled in England is founded on these 
fanciful parallels. Mr. Froude himself shrinks from his 
own assertion as quoted above; for he adds, "It is not 
to be supposed that the intellects of those great men 
who converted the world to Christianity were satisfied 
with arguments so imaginative as these : they must 

1 Adv. Haer., iii. 2, 7. 2 Short Studies on Great Subjects, p. 213. 



188 THE GROUNDS OF TIIEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

have had other closer and more accurate grounds for 
the decision," etc. But then he continues, " The mere 
employment of such figures as evidence in any sense 
shows the enormous difference between their modes of 
reasoning and ours, and illustrates the difficulty of de- 
ciding, at our present distance from them, how far their 
conclusions were satisfactory." If they had "other 
closer and more accurate " grounds of belief, why should 
such instances of weakness in reasoning, even if it be 
intended as strict reasoning, operate to destroy the 
value of their testimony ? A man who is not a strict 
logician may be a perfectly credible witness to facts 
within his cognizance. But the inference suggested by 
Mr. Froude's remark as to the intellectual character 
of Irenceus is unjust. A single instance of weak rea- 
soning is a slender basis for so broad a conclusion. 
Jonathan Edwards is rightly considered a man of pene- 
trating intellect and of some skill in logic. Yet in his 
diary he makes this absurd remark : " January, 1728. 
I think Christ has recommended rising early in the 
morning, by his rising from the grave so early." * Cer- 
tainly no one would feel himself justified, on account of 
Edwards's remark, in disputing his word on a matter 
of fact within his personal cognizance. We do not 
mean that Irenams had the same measure of intellect- 
ual vigor as Edwards : nevertheless, he was not a weak 
man, and he furnishes in his writings a great many 
examples of sound reasoning. The inference unfavora- 
ble to the value of his testimony, which Froude in 
common with many others has drawn from a single 
instance of fanciful argument or illustration, is itself an 
example of very flimsy logic. 

In quoting the statements of the Christian writers of 

1 Dwight's Life of Edwards, p. 106. 



THE GOSPELS A FAITHFUL RECORD. 189 

the closing part of the second century, it is not implied, 
of course, that either they or their informants were in- 
capable of error. Who does not know that traditions, 
the substance of which is perfectly trustworthy, may 
interweave incidental or minor details, which, if not 
without foundation, at least require to be sifted? A 
tradition may take on new features of this character, 
even in passing from one individual to another, when 
there is an average degree of accuracy in both. But 
every intelligent historical critic knows the distinction 
which is to be made between essential facts and their 
accessories. It is only the ignorant, or the sophist who 
has an end to accomplish, that ignore this distinction, 
and seek to apply the maxim, falsus in uno, falsus in 
omnibus, which relates to wilful mendacity, to the unde- 
signed modifications which oral statements are almost 
sure to undergo in the process of transmission from one 
to another. It is evident that the few documents on 
which the Christians of the second century depended 
for their knowledge of the life and ministry of Christ 
must have had an importance in their eyes which would 
render the main facts as to the origin of these writings 
of the highest interest and importance. As to these 
documents, the foundation of the faith for which they 
were exposing themselves to torture and death, infor- 
mation would be earnestly sought and highly prized. 
That this curiosity, which we should expect to find, 
really existed, the ecclesiastical writers plainly indicate. 
Let us now go back from the age of Irenseus to the 
first half of the second century. In that obscure period, 
where so many writings which might have thrown light 
on the questions before us have perished, there is one 
author who is competent to afford us welcome informa- 
tion. It is Justin Martyr. He was born in Palestine, 



190 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

at Flavia Neapolis, near the site of the ancient Sichem. 
From his pen there remain two apologies, the first and 
principal of which was addressed to Antoninus Pius, 
A.D. 147 or 148, and a dialogue with Tiypho, a Jew. 
In these writings, two of which are directed to heathen, 
and the third treats of points in controversy between 
Jews and Christians, there was no occasion to refer to 
the evangelists by name. The sources from which he 
draws his accounts of the life and teaching of Jesus 
are styled Memoirs, a term borrowed from the title 
given by Xenophon to his reminiscences of Socrates. 
Were these Memoirs the four Gospels of the canon ? 1 

The first observation to be made is, that a tolerably 
full narrative of the life of Jesus can be put together 
from Justin's quotations and allusions, and that this 
narrative coincides with the canonical Gospels. The 
quotations are not verbally accurate ; neither are Jus- 
tin's citations from heathen writers or the Old-Testa- 
ment prophets. He is not always in verbal agreement 
with himself when he has occasion to cite a passage, or 
refer to an incident more than once. 2 It was not a cus- 
tom of the early Fathers to quote the New-Testament 
writers with verbal accuracy. Justin blends together 
statements in the different Gospels. This is easily 
accounted for on the supposition that he was quoting 



i On the subject of the Memoirs of Justin and his quotations, the 
following writers are of special value: Semisch, Die apostolischen 
Denkwiirdigkeiten des Martyrers Justinus (1848); Sanday, The Gospels 
of the Second Century, pp. 88-138; Norton, The Evidences of the Genu- 
ineness of the Gospels, vol. i. pp. 200-240, ccxiv.-ccxxxiii.; Westcott, 
History of the Canon of the N. T., pp. 83-150; Professor E. Abbot, The 
Authorship of the Fourth Gospel — External Evidences (1880); also 
Bleek's Einl. in d. N. T. (ed. Mangold), p. 271 seq.; Hilgenfeld'a 
Kritisch. Dntersach. iiber die Evangell. Justins, der Clementiner, u. 
Marcions; and Supernatural Religion (7th ed.). 

2 E.g., Matt. xi. 27. See Apol., i. c. 63; Dial., c. 106. 



THE GOSPELS A FAITHFUL RECORD. 191 

from memory, and when it is remembered, that, for the 
purpose which he had in view, he had no motive to set 
off carefully to each evangelist what specially belonged 
to him. A similar habit of connecting circumstances 
from the several Gospels is not unfrequent at present, 
familiar as these writings have become. It is impossi- 
ble here to combine all the items of the gospel history 
which may be gathered up from Justin's writings, but 
an idea of their character and extent may be given 
by casting a portion of them into a consecutive narra- 
tive. 1 

The Messiah, according to Justin, was born of a 
virgin. Particulars of the annunciation (Luke i. 26, 
31, 35) and of Joseph's dream (Matt. i. 18-25) are 
given. He was born in Bethlehem, where his parents 
were, in consequence of the census under Cyrenius. 
He was laid in a manger, was worshipped by the Magi, 
was carried by his parents into Egypt on account of 
the machinations of Herod, which led to the massacre 
of the children in Bethlehem. From Egypt they re- 
turned, after the death of Herod. At Nazareth Jesus 
grew up to the age of thirty, and was a carpenter 
(Mark vi. 3). There he remained until John appeared 
in his wild garb, declaring that he was not the Christ 
(John i. 19 seq.), but that One stronger than he was 
coming, whose shoes he was not worthy to bear. John 
was put in prison, and was beheaded, at a feast on 
Herod's birthday, at the instance of his sister's daugh- 
ter (Matt. xiv. 6 seq.). This John was the Elias who 
was to come (Matt. xvii. 11-13). Jesus was baptized 

1 The quotations from Justin are collected in Credncr's Beitriige zur 
Einl., etc., pp. 150-209. The resvmd above is mainly abridged from Dr. 
Sanday's The Gospels in the Second Century, pp. 91-98. Summaries of 
a like nature are given in Mr. Sadler's The Lost Gospel and its Contents 
(Loudon, 1S7(>). 



192 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

by John in. the Jordan. The temptation followed. To 
Satan's demand to be worshipped, Jesus replied, " Get 
thee behind me, Satan," etc. Jesus wrought miracles, 
healing the blind, dumb, lame, all weakness and disease, 
and raising the dead. He began his teaching by pro- 
claiming that the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matt, 
iv. 17). Justin introduces a large number of the pre- 
cepts of the Sermon on the Mount, sayings from the 
narrative of the centurion of Capernaum (Matt. viii. 
11, 12; Luke xiii. 28, 29), and of the feast in the house 
of Matthew. He brings in the choosing of the twelve 
disciples, the name Boanerges given to the sons of 
Zebedee (Mark iii. 17), the commission of the apostles, 
the discourse of Jesus after the departure of the mes- 
sengers of John, the sign of the prophet Jonas, Peter's 
confession of faith (Matt. xvi. 15-18), the announce- 
ment of the passion (Matt. xvi. 21). Justin has the 
story of the rich young man ; the entry of Jesus into 
Jerusalem ; the cleansing of the temple ; the wedding- 
garment ; the conversations upon the tribute-money, 
upon the resurrection (Luke xx. 35, 36), and upon 
the greatest commandment ; the denunciations of the 
Pharisees ; the eschatological discourse ; and the para- 
ble of the talents (Matt. xxv. 14-30). Justin's account 
of the institution of the Lord's Supper corresponds to 
that of Luke. Jesus is said to have sung a hymn at 
the close of the Supper, to have letired with three of 
his disciples to the Mount of Olives, to have been in an 
agony, his sweat falling in drops to the ground (Luke 
xxii. 42-44). His followers forsook him. He was 
brought before the scribes and Pharisees, and before 
Pilate. He kept silence before Pilate. Pilate sent him 
bound to Herod (Luke xxiii. 7). Most of the circum- 
stances of the crucifixion are narrated by Justin, such 



THE GOSPELS A FAITHFUL RECORD. 193 

as the piercing with nails, the casting of lots, the fact 
of sneers uttered by the crowd, the cry, " My God, my 
God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " and the last words, 
" Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit " (Luke 
xxiii. 46). Christ is said to have been buried in the 
evening, the disciples being all scattered, according to 
Zech. xiii. 7 (Matt. xxvi. 31, 56). On the third day he 
rose from the dead. He convinced his disciples that 
his sufferings had been predicted (Luke xxiv. 26, 46). 
He gave them his last commission. They saw him as- 
cend into heaven (Luke xxiv. 50). The Jews spread 
a story that the disciples stole the body of Jesus from 
the grave. 

This is a mere outline of the references to the gospel 
history which are scattered in profusion through Jus- 
tin's writings. A full citation of them would exhibit 
more impressively their correspondence to the Gospels. 
The larger portion of the matter, it will be perceived, 
accords with what we find in Matthew and Luke ; a 
small portion of it, however, is found in Mark exclu- 
sively. But there are not wanting clear and striking 
correspondences to John. The most important of these 
single passages is that relating to regeneration, 1 which, 
notwithstanding certain verbal variations to be noticed 
hereafter, bears a close resemblance to John iii. 3-5. 
Again : Christ is said by Justin to have reproached the 
Jews as knowing neither the Father nor the Son (John 
viii. 19, xvi. 3). He is said to have healed those who 
were blind from "their birth," 2 using here a phrase, 
which, like the fact, is found in John alone among 
the evangelists (John ix. 1). Strongly as these and 
some other passages resemble incidents and sayings in 
John, the correspondence of Justin's doctrinal state- 

i Apol., i. 61. 2 Dia ,i M c . 49. 



194 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

ments respecting the divinity of Christ and the Logos 
to the teaching of the fourth Gospel are even more 
significant. Justin speaks of Christ as the Son of God, 
" who alone is properly called Son, the Word ; who also 
was with him, and was begotten before the works." 1 
He says of Christ, that " he took flesh, and became 
man." 2 We are "to recognize him as God coming 
forth from above, and Man living among men. 3 Con- 
ceptions of this sort, expressed in language either iden- 
tical with that of John, or closely resembling it, enter 
into the warp and woof of Justin's doctrinal system. 
They are both in substance and style Johannine. Pro- 
fessed theologians may think themselves able to point 
out shades of difference between Justin's idea of the 
pre-existence and divinity of Christ and that of the 
fourth Gospel. But, if there be an appreciable differ- 
ence, it is far less marked than differences which subsist 
among ancient and modern interpreters of the Gospel 
without number. The efforts of the author of Super- 
natural Religion to make out a great diversity of idea 
from unimportant variations of language — as in the 
statement that the Logos " became man," instead of the 
Hebraic expression, " became flesh " — hardly merit at- 
tention. Some of his criticisms apply with equal force 
to the Nicene Creed, and would prove its authors to 
have been unacquainted with the fourth Gospel, or to 
have disbelieved in it. 4 

The next observation respecting Justin is, that his 
references to events or sayings in the Gospel history, 
which have not substantial parallels in the four evangel- 

i Apol., ii. 6. 2 ibid., ii. 5. 3 ibid., i. 23. 

4 See The Lost Gospel, etc., p. 91. In Dial., c. 1C5, Justin is more 
naturally understood as referring a statement peculiar to John to the 
Memoirs. See Professor E. Abbot, Authorship of the Fourth Gospel, 
p. 43. 



THE GOSPELS A FAITHFUL RECORD. 195 

ists, are few and insignificant. They embrace not more 
than two sayings of Jesus. The first is, " In what things 
I shall apprehend you, in these will I judge you ," * 
which is found also in Clement of Alexandria 2 and 
Hippolytus. 3 The second is, " There shall be schisms 
and heresies," 4 — a prediction referred also to Christ by 
Tertullian 5 and Clement. 6 Thus both passages occur 
in other writers who own no authoritative Gospels but 
the four of the canon. Justin represents the voice from 
heaven at the baptism of Jesus as saying, "Thou art 
my Son ; this day have I begotten thee," 7 — a combi- 
nation of expressions, which is found in the Codex 
Bezse, in Clement of Alexandria, 8 in Augustine, and 9 is 
said by him to be the reading in some manuscripts, 
though not the oldest. 10 The recurrence of the same 
expression in Ps. ii. 7, or Acts xiii. 33, Heb. i. 5, v. 5, 
led naturally to a confusion of memory, out of which 
this textual reading may have sprung. That Jesus was 
charged by the Jews with being a magician u is a state- 
ment made by Lactantius 12 as well as by Justin, and is 
probably a reference to the accusation that he wrought 
miracles by the aid of Beelzebub. The incidental say- 
ing, that the ass on which Jesus rode was tied to a vine, 13 
was probably a detail taken up from Gen. xlix. 11, with 
which it is connected by Justin. The saying connected 

1 Dial., c. 47. 2 Quis div. salvus, c. 40. 

s Opp. ed. de Lag., p. 73 (Otto's Justin, i. 2, p. 161, n. 21). The origin 
of the passage has been traced by some to Ezekiel, to whom Justin 
refers in the context. See Ezek. vii. 3, 8, xviii. 30, xxiv. 14, xxxiii. 20. 
Otto suggests that it may have been a marginal summary attached by 
some oue to Matt. xxiv. 40 seq., xxv. 1 seq. 

4 Dial., c. 35, cf. c. 51, cf. 1 Cor. xi. 18, 19. 

6 De Prescript. Hrer., c. 4. 6 Strom., vii. 15, § 90. 

T Dial., c. 88, cf. c. 103. » Fx a., i. G. 

» Enchir. ad Laur., c. 49. *> De Cons. Evv., ii. 14 (Otto, i. 1, p. 325). 

" Dial., c. 49, cf. Apol., i. 30. 12 Institute, v. 3. 

w Apol., i. c. 32. 



196 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

with the designation of Jesus as a carpenter, that lie 
made ploughs and yokes, 1 may have sprung from his 
words in Luke ix. 62 and Matt. xi. 29, 30. It was 
found pleasant to imagine him to have once made 
these objects to which he figuratively referred. 2 Jus- 
tin speaks of Jesus as having been born in a cave, 3 
but he also says that he was laid in a manger. That 
the stable which contained the manger was a cave or 
grotto was a current tradition in the time of Origen. 4 
One other allusion completes the brief catalogue of 
uncanonical passages in Justin. He speaks of a fire 
kindled on the Jordan in connection with the baptism 
of Jesus, — a circumstance which might have mingled 
itself early in the oral tradition. These constitute the 
whole of the supplement to the contents of the four 
Gospels to be found in the mass of Justin's references; 5 

i Dial., c. 88. 2 See Otto, i. 2, p. 324 ; Semisch, p. 393. 

3 Dial., c. 78. 4 Cont. Celsuui, i. 51. 

6 Other slight variations from the Gospels are sometimes owing to 
the wish of Justin to accommodate the facts in the life of Jesus to the 
predictions of the Old Testament. This is especially the case, as might 
be expected, in the dialogue with Trypho the Jew. The following, it 
is believed, are all the instances of circumstantial deviation from the 
evangelists. Mary is said to have descended from David (Dial., c. 43, 
cf. cc. 45, 100, 120). This statement is connected (c. 68) with Isa. vii. 13. 
Irenreus and Tertullian say the same of Mary. The Magi came from 
Arabia (Dial., 77, cf. 78, 88, 102, 106), on the basis of Ps. lxxii. 10, 15 ; 
Isa. Ix. 6. The same is said by many later writers (Semisch, p. 385). In 
connection with Ps. xxii. 11, it is said (Dial., 103), that, when Jesus was 
seized, not a single person was there to help him. In Dial., c. 103, Pilate 
is said to have sent Jesus to Herod bound ; this being suggested by Hos. 
vi. 1. So Tertullian, Adv. Marc, iv. c. 42 ; also Cyril of Jerusalem (see 
Otto, i. 2, p. 370, n. 14). The Jews, it is said (Apol., i. 35), set Jesus on 
the judgment-seat, and said, " Judge us," in fulfilment of the prediction 
in Isa. lviii. 2 ; the circumstance referred to being recorded in Matt, 
xxvii. 26, 30. In Dial., i. 101 (Apol., i. 38), the bystanders at the cross 
are said to have distorted their lips, — the thing predicted in Ps. xxii. 7 ; 
and in Apol., i. 38, on the basis of several passages in the Psalms, they 
are said to have cried out, " He who raised the dead, let him save him- 
self." In Apol., i. 50, the disciples after the crucifixion are said to have 



THE GOSPELS A FAITHFUL RECORD. 197 

and, as the author of Supernatural Religion observes, 
" Justin's works teem with these quotations." In the 
index to Otto's critical edition they number two hun- 
dred and eighty-one. It may be here remarked, that 
not one of these supplementary scraps is referred by 
Justin to the Memoirs. 

It is thus evident, that, whatever the Memoirs were, 
their contents were substantially coincident with the 
contents of the four Gospels. It is a necessary infer- 
ence, that, at the time when Justin wrote, there was 
a definite, well-established tradition respecting the life 
and teaching of Jesus ; for the Memoirs, he tells us, were 
read on Sundays in the churches, in city and country. 1 
The period of his theological activity was from about 
A.D. 140 to A.D. 160. None will probably be disposed 
to question, that as early, at least, as A.D. 135, he was 
conversant with this gospel tradition, and knew that 
it was inculcated in the churches. The Jewish war of 
Barchochebas (A.D. 131 to 136), he says, was in his 
own time. 2 But that date (A.D. 135), to which the 
personal recollection of Justin on this subject extended, 
was only thirty-seven years after the accession of Tra- 
jan, — an event which preceded the death of the Apostle 
John at Ephesus. 3 If the date of Justin's acquaintance 
with the habitual teaching of the church respecting the 

fled from Christ, and denied him ; and in c. 106 (cf. c. 53) they are said 
to have repented of it after the resurrection ; the prophetic references 
being Zech. xiii. 7 and Isa. liii. 1-8. In Dial., c. 35, Jesus is represented 
as predicting, that " false apostles " (as well as false prophets) will arise. 
This is not presented as an instance of prophecy fulfilled ; but the same 
thing is found in Tertullian, De Prase. Hserett., c. 4, and in other writers. 
In Dial., c. 51, Jesus predicts his re-appearance at Jerusalem, and that 
he will eat and drink with his disciples, — a free paraphrase of Matt. 
xxvi. 29 and Luke xxii. 18. Not one of these passages, in the context 
where it occurs, would naturally lead the reader to presuppose any other 
source of them than the canonical Gospels. 

i Apol., i. 67. 2 Ibid., ii. 31. * Irenseus, Adv. Hser., ii. 22, 5, in. 3, 4. 



198 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

life of Jesus were 1883, in the room of 135, the termi- 
nation of the apostle's life would be set no farther back 
from us than 1816. Justin incidentally remarks, that 
many men and women sixty or seventy years old, who 
had been Christians from their youth, were to be found 
in the churches. 1 Many of his Christian contemporaries 
could remember as far back as the closing decades of 
the first century. Is it reasonable to believe that in 
the interval between John and Justin, in the organized 
Christian societies of Syria, Asia Minor, and Italy, with 
which Justin is considered to have been conversant, the 
established conception of the life of Jesus, of his doings 
and sayings, underwent an essential alteration? 

Before bringing forward direct proof that the Mem- 
oirs were the Gospels of the canon, it is well to notice a 
rival theory which has been advanced to disprove this 
hypothesis. Partly on the basis of the uncanonical pas- 
sages in Justin, and partly on another ground soon to 
be mentioned, certain critics have contended that the 
mass of his quotations were derived from some other 
Gospel than the four ; in particular, from the Gospel of 
the Hebrews, or from an apocryphal Gospel of Peter, 
which has been assumed, without evidence, to have 
been a form of that Gospel. There was an Aramaic 
gospel, commonly called " the Gospel according to the 
Hebrews," which was extensively used by Jewish Chris- 
tians in Palestine and Syria. Hegesippus (about A.D. 
150) is said by Eusebius to have borrowed some things 
from it. 2 It is referred to by Clement of Alexandria. 3 
Origen also cites from it ; 4 and Jerome translated it 
into Greek and Latin. 5 It owed its repute mainly to a 

i Apol., i. 15. 2 H. E., iv. 22. 8 Strom., ii. 9. 

* Comment, in Johann., torn. iv. ; Homil. in Jerein., 15. 
« De Vir. 111., c. 2. 



THE GOSPELS A FAITHFUL RECORD. 199 

prevalent idea that it was the original of the Gospel of 
Matthew. This may, perhaps, have been true of it in 
its primitive form; for it underwent various modifica- 
tions. In all its forms, however, it retained its affinity 
to our first Gospel. It is evident from the fragments 
that remain, twenty-two of which have been collected 
by Hilgenfeld, 1 that the canonical Gospel is the original, 
and that the deviations from it in parallel texts in the 
Gospel of the Hebrews are of a later date. " The frag- 
ments preserved in Greek," says Professor Lipsius, " by 
Epiphanius " — which are tinged with Esssean doctrine, 
and have some statements also coincident with Luke — 
" betray very clearly their dependence on our canonical 
Gospels ; though it is impossible, on the other hand, to 
prove that the Hebrew text was a translation back into 
Aramaic from the Greek. The Aramaic fragments also 
contain much that can be explained and understood 
only on the hypothesis that it is a recasting of the 
canonical text." 2 All that we know of the Gospel of 
Peter is from a statement, preserved in Eusebius, of 
Serapion, who was bishop of Antioch at the end of the 
second, and beginning of the third century. He had 
found this book in use in the town of Rhossus in Cili- 
cia. It favored the heresy of Docetism, although in the 
main orthodox. 3 There is no proof that it was a narra- 
tive. It was probably of a doctrinal cast. Eusebius 4 
and Jerome 5 refer to it as an heretical book which no 
early teacher of the church had made use of. Justin 
in one passage, recording an incident respecting Peter, 

1 Nov. Test., extra can. recept., fasc. iv. pp. 5-38. Mr. E. B. Nichol- 
son thinks that thirty-three can be discovered. See The Gospel accord- 
ing to the Hebrews, etc., pp. 28-77. 

2 Smith and Waco's Diet, of Christ. Biogr., art. Gospels Apocryphal, 
vol. i., p. 710. 

8 Eusebius, H. E., vi. 12. 4 H. E., iii. 25. 6 De Vir. 111., 1. 



200 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

professes to derive it from " his Gospel." J The inci- 
dent is found nowhere except in the canonical Gospel 
of Mark. If the usual reading is correct, there is no 
reason to question that this is the Gospel to which 
Justin here refers. But there are grounds for the opin- 
ion that the text should be amended by substituting 
the plural of the pronoun for the singular, and that the 
reference is, as ordinarily in Justin, to the memoirs of 
" the apostles." 2 

About forty years ago, Credner, a theologian of Gies- 
sen, published his critical works on the New Testament, 
in which the quotations of Justin were collected and 
tabulated. The judgment of this scholar did not in 
every case keep pace with his learning. He held that 
the first three Gospels were in the hands of Justin, and 
he believed in the Johannine authorship of the fourth ; 
but he attributed an exaggerated influence to the Jew- 
ish-Christian Gospels, and broached the opinion that 
Justin drew the main portion of his quotations from 
them. The Tubingen doctors started with the facts 
and data of Credner, and proceeded to push his theory 
to the extreme of excluding altogether the canonical 
Gospels from the circle of Justin's authorities. The 
author of Supernatural Religion treads closely in their 
footsteps. He attributes Justin's quotations to an Ebi- 
onite document that has passed away. One argument 
for this view is from the character of the verbal de- 
viations in Justin's quotations from the text of the 
Gospels. This argument is destitute of force. His 
quotations are not more inexact than those of other 
Fathers which are known to be derived from the canoni- 
cal Gospels. In one of the most striking instances of 
inexact quotation (Matt. x. 27 ; cf. Luke x. 22) the 

1 Dial., c. 106. 2 See Otto's note (10), ad loc. 



THE GOSPELS A FAITHFUL RECORD. 201 

same variations from the canonical text are found in 
Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Irenseus. 1 In 
repeated instances, Justin attributes passages to one 
prophet which belong to anothei. 2 He quotes the Old 
Testament and heathen writers with the same sort of 
freedom. Where Justin varies from the Septuagint, he 
often varies in different places in the same manner. 
Hence uniformity of variation does not in the least 
warrant the inference of the use of other books than 
the Gospels. The main argument which is relied on to 
prove the non-canonical source of Justin's quotations 
is the alleged identity of some of them which deviate 
from the canonical text with quotations in the Clemen- 
tine Homilies, which are assumed to be from a Hebrew 
gospel. The answer to this is conclusive. First, the 
author of the Homilies used the synoptical Gospels, and 
he presents at least one passage which is undeniably 
from John. But, secondly, the alleged identity does 
not exist. The premise of the argument is false. Of 
Justin's quotations generally, it is true, that, so far from 
tallying with those of the Homilies, they differ verbally 
from them as widely as the same quotations differ from 
the literal text of our evangelists. Of the five quota- 
tions on which the argument for identity of origin rests, 
it has been demonstrated that there is no such resem- 
blance as the argument assumes to exist. 3 What can 
be the worth of reasoning, which, were it valid, would 
compel us to hold that Jeremy Taylor drew his knowl- 

1 See Semisch, p. 367. 

2 E.g., Apol., i. 53, where a passage in Isaiah is credited to Jeremiah. 
8 See Professor E. Abbot, Authorship of the Fourth Gospel, p. 31 

seq., 100 seq. Professor Abbot's exhaustive investigation has settled 
the question of the derivation of the passage in Justin on regeneration 
(Apol., i. Gl) from John iii. 3-5. Cf., on Justin and the Clementines, 
"Westcott, Hist, of the Canon, p. 129 seq., and note D, p. 155; Dr. E. A. 
Abbot, Enc. Brit., vol. x. p. 818. 



202 THE GROUNDS OF TIIEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

edge of the teachings and acts of Christ, not from the 
Gospels of the canon, but from a lost Ebionitic docu- 
ment? On this subject Professor Lipsius, a scholar 
admitted to be free from the apologetic bias which is so 
freely and often so groundlessly imputed to defenders 
of the genuineness of the Gospels, says, " The attempt 
to prove that the two writers [Justin and the author of 
the Homilies] had one such extra-canonical authority 
common to them both, either in the Gospel of the 
Hebrews or in the Gospel of St. Peter, has altogether 
failed." "Herewith," observes the same writer, "fall 
to the ground all those hypotheses which make the 
Gospel of Peter into an original work made use of by 
Justin Martyr, nigh related to the Gospel of the Hebrews, 
and either the Jewish-Christian basis of our canonical 
St. Mark, or, at any rate, the gospel of the Gnosticizing 
Ebionites." 1 Certain passages of Scripture are not un- 
frequently misquoted in the same way, owing to causes 
which in each case are readily explained. There are, so 
to speak, stereotyped errors of quotation. Another occa- 
sion of greater or less uniformity in verbal deviations 
from the text as we have it is the diversity of manu- 
scripts. Attention to the ordinary operations of mem- 
ory, and more familiarity with textual criticism, would 
have kept out untenable theories of the kind just re- 
viewed. 

Justin was a native of Palestine. He may have been 
acquainted with the Gospel of the Hebrews, as other 
Fathers were. He may have read in it that Jesus made 
ploughs and yokes, and that a fire was kindled in the 
Jordan at his baptism, although this last tradition is 
differently given in that Gospel. 2 There is no proof, 

i Diet, of Christ. Biogr., vol. ii. p. 712. 

3 See Nicholson, The Gospel of the Hebrews, etc., p. 40. The state- 



THE GOSPELS A FAITHFUL RECORD. 203 

however, that he picked up these circumstances from 
any written source. They were probably afloat in oral 
tradition before they found their way into books. But 
there is decisive proof that the Gospel of the Hebrews 
was not one of the Memoirs which were his authorita- 
tive sources. That was a gospel of Judaic sectaries, 
and Justin was not an Ebionite. There is not a shadow 
of reason to suppose that the Gospel of the Hebrews 
was ever read in the churches which he must have had 
most prominently in mind. It is only necessary to ob- 
serve how he describes the Memoirs, to be convinced 
that the Gospels of the canon are meant. He speaks 
of them as composed by " the apostles and their com- 
panions," and this he does in connection with a quo- 
tation which is found in Luke. 1 This accounts for his 
adding the term " companions " to his usual designa- 
tion of these documents. This is the same mode of 
describing the Gospels which we find in Tertullian and 
in other later writers. 2 In one place, in the dialogue with 
Trypho, he calls them collectively "the Gospel," — a 
term applied to the contents of the four, taken together, 
by Irenceus and Tertullian in the same century. He 
says, however, expressly that they are called " Gospels." 3 
Apart from this explicit statement, it is preposterous to 
imagine that Justin can have one document only in 
mind in his references to the Memoirs. Was that 
document the joint production of the "apostles and 
their companions " ? This would be a case of multiple 
authorship without a parallel in literature. If the 
hypothesis of the author of Supernatural Religion 
were tenable, we should have to hold that a gospel 

merit is found, for substance, in two ancient Latin MSS., and is perhaps 
alluded to by Juvencus, a Christian writer of the fourth century. 

i Dial., c. 103. 2 See Tertullian, Adv. Marc, iv. 2. « Apol., i. 66. 



204 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

comprising in itself the contents of the four of the 
canon was read, in the middle of the second century, 
in the churches "in city and country," and was then, 
within a score of years, silently superseded by four 
Gospels of unknown authorship, among which its con- 
tents were distributed. The ancient document of estab- 
lished authority vanished as if by magic at the advent 
of these new-comers, among whom it was somehow par- 
titioned ! And this miraculous exchange, which took 
place when Irenseus was not far from thirty years old, 
occurred without his knowledge ! Such an hypothesis 
is too heavy a tax on credulity. Scholars of all types 
of opinion are now disposed to accept the conclusion, 
which should never have been disputed, that Justin used 
all the Gospels of the canon ; and it is safe to predict 
that there will be a like unanimity in the conviction 
that it is these alone which he designates as Memoirs 
by the Apostles and their Companions. 

The proposition that Justin's Memoirs were the four 
Gospels is corroborated, if it stood in need of further 
support, by the fact that Tatian, who had been his 
hearer, and speaks of him with admiration, 1 wrote a 
Harmony of the Four Gospels. Tatian is intermediate 
between Justin and Irenseus. He flourished as an au- 
thor between A.D. 155 and 170. In his extant Address 
to the Greeks are passages evidently drawn from John's 
Gospel. 2 Eusebius says, that, " having formed a certain 
combination and bringing-together of Gospels, — I know 
not how, — he has given this the title Diatesseron; 
that is, the gospel by the four," etc. The expression 
" I know not how " implies, not that Eusebius had not 
seen the book, but that the plan seemed strange to 

i H. E., iv. 29 ; Tatian, Orat. ad Graecos, c. IS. 
a Cc. 4, 5, 13, 19. 



THE GOSPELS A FAITHFUL RECORD. 205 

him. 1 At the beginning of the fifth century Theocloret 
tells us that he had found two hundred copies of the 
work in circulation, and had taken them away, substi- 
tuting for them the four Gospels. A Syrian writer, 
Bar Salibi, in the twelfth century, had seen the work : 
he distinguishes it from another Harmony by Ammo- 
nius ; and he testifies that it began with the words, " In 
the beginning was the Word." A commentary on this 
Diatesseron, Bar Salibi states, had been made in the 
fourth century by Ephraem Syrus. This is not all the 
evidence in support of the assertion of Eusebius on this 
subject. The recent discussion by Bishop Lightfoot 
has placed beyond reasonable doubt the correctness of 
it. More recently still, the commentary of Ephraem of 
Syria has been published in a Latin translation from 
the Armenian. 2 The composition of such a work, in 
which the four Gospels were probably worked together 
into one narrative, is an independent proof of the rec- 
ognition which they enjoyed, and is an additional proof 
that the same Gospels constituted the Memoirs of Justin. 
There were a few writings, not included in the canon, 
which were sometimes read in the early churches for 
purposes of edification ; and some of these were held by 
some of the Fathers to have a certain claim to inspira- 
tion. In this list are embraced the Epistle ascribed to 
Barnabas, the Epistle of Clement of Rome, and the 
Shepherd of Hermas. A book of much less note, an 
Epistle of Soter, bishop of Rome, is also said to have 
been sometimes read in churches ; and there are some 
traces of a similar use of an Apocalypse of Peter, which 
Eusebius and Jerome brand as apocryphal. Not one of 

i See Lightfoot, Contemporary Review for May, 1877, p. 1136. 
2 See Zahn's Tatian's Diatesseron (1881). On its date, see llarnack's 
Die Uberlieferung dc ^riecliischen Apologeten d. 2tn Jalirh. (1882). 



206 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

these books was a narrative. None of them ever had 
any thing like the standing of the documents which 
recorded the facts in the public ministry of Christ, on 
which the very life of the church depended. They 
were read in some of the churches for a time ; but even 
Fathers who regard them with honor, as is seen in the 
example of Clement of Alexandria, do not hesitate to 
criticise their teaching. 1 The Memoirs of Justin were 
narratives, placed by all the churches on a level with 
the prophets of the Old Testament. 2 The gradual sep- 
aration of the didactic writings whose titles have been 
given from the books of the canon does not in the least 
help us to comprehend how the documents referred to 
by Justin could have been expelled from the churches, 
and perished out of sight. 

It is sometimes imagined, if not asserted, that there 
were apocryphal Gospels which were widely used in 
the churches of the second century, and shared in the 
esteem accorded to the four of the canon. This is a 
groundless impression. The apocryphal Gospels which 
are now extant, relating to the nativity and childhood 
of Jesus, and to the Virgin Mary, never pretended to 
be any thing more than supplements to the received 
Gospels. They are of a much later date than the age 
of Justin. It has been thought by some that two or 
three of them existed in an earlier, rudimental form at 
that day. 3 Such was the opinion of Tischendorf. But 

1 Clement (Paid., ii. 10, ed. Potter, p. 220) dissents from a statement 
of Barnabas (e. x.). Origen more definitely separates these writings 
from those which are autnoritative. Cf. Bleek, Einl. in d. N. T., p. 755. 
Yet at Alexandria there was a stronger tendency to accept writings of 
this class than existed elsewhere in the church. 

2 Apol., i. 67. 

3 It may be well to state what apocryphal Gospels present the slight- 
est plausible claim to great antiquity 

The Protevangelium of James treats of the nativity of Mary. Origen 



THE GOSPELS A FAITHFUL RECORD. 207 

even this is doubtful. The Gospel of the Hebrews, or 
the Hebrew St. Matthew, in its various redactions, had 
a wide acceptance among the different Jewish sects. 
But, this Gospel and Marcion's mutilated Luke except- 
ed, there were no uncanonical gospel narratives which 
we have reason to think had any extensive circulation 
among professed Christians. There were no rivals of 
the Memoirs to which Justin referred. Numerous books 
were fabricated among heretical parties ; but, though 
they might bear the name of " Gospels," they were gen- 
erally of a didactic nature. This is the case with The 
Gosjyel of the Truth, which Irenseus and Tertullian 
inform us had been composed by the Valentinians. 
It is a powerful argument for the genuineness of the 
canonical Gospels, that the Gnostics are constantly 
charged with bolstering up their doctrines by perverse 
interpretation of the Gospels, but are not accused of 
bringing forward narratives of their own at variance 
with them. On this subject Professor Norton remarks : 

refers to it by name (in Matt., torn. x. 17, ed. Migne, vol. iii. p. 875); 
but it could not be the existing book that he used, as is shown by Pro- 
fessor Lipsius, Diet, of Christ. Biogr., ii. 702. Clement of Alexandria 
(Strom., vii.) is thought to have referred to it. There is no proof that 
Justin (in Dial., c. 78) borrowed from it. Says Professor Lipsius, " There 
is, indeed, no clear warrant for the existence of our present text of the 
Protevangelium prior to the time of Peter of Alexandria (311)." Gnos- 
tic and Ebionitic features are mingled in it. 

The Acta Pilati forms the first part of the Gospel of Nicodemus. 
Justin (Apol., i. 28, 36) refers to the Acts of Pilate, as does Tertullian 
(Apol., 21; cf. 5). Both have in mind, probably, not any book, but an 
official report, which they assume to exist in the public archives at 
Rome. Eusebius (H. E., ii. 2) refers to a blasphemous Pagan forgery 
under this same title, which was of recent origin. The first trace of the 
present Acts of Pilate is in Epiphanius (A.D. 37G), Hser., SO, 1. 

A Gospel of St. Thomas is referred to by Origen (Horn, in Luc, i). 
It was used by the Gnostic sects of Marcosians and Naassenes (Hippol., 
Ref. Oran. H;cr., v. 2; cf. Irenams, Adv. H;cr., i. 20, 1). Portions of this 
honk may exist in the extant Gospel of the same name. It relates to 
Ihe boyhood of Christ. 



208 THE GROUNDS OF TIIEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

"Irenaeus and Tertullian were the two principal writers 
against the Gnostics ; and from their works it does not 
appear that the Valentinians, the Marcionites, or any- 
other Gnostic sect, adduced, in support of their opin- 
ions, a single narrative relating to the public ministry 
of Christ, besides what is found in the Gospels. It does 
not appear that they ascribed to him a single sentence 
of any imaginable importance which the evangelists 
have not transmitted. It does not appear that any sect 
appealed to the authority of any history of his public 
ministry besides the Gospels, except so far as the Mar- 
cionites, in their use of an imperfect copy of St. Luke's 
Gospel, may be regarded as forming a verbal exception 
to this remark." * 

With the exception of the Valentinian Gospel of 
Truth, the reference to which is contained in a dis- 
puted passage of Tertullian, it is true, as Professor 
Norton states, that this Father " nowhere speaks of any 
apocryphal Gospel, or intimates a knowledge of the ex- 
istence of such a book." 2 In all the writers of the 
first three centuries, there are not more quotations pro- 
fessedly derived from apocryphal books called by them 
Gospels than can be counted on the fingers of one hand. 3 

1 Genuineness of the Gospels, iii. 222. 

2 Ibid., iii. 227. Tertullian expressly states that Valentinus used all 
the four Gospels (De Prescript. Hser., c. 38). On the sense of videtur in 
the passages, see Professor E. Abbot, Authorship of the Fourth Gospel, 
p. 81, note. 

3 The following is a list of them. Origen once quotes a statement 
from the Gospel of Peter (Comment, in Matt., torn. x. 402, 463). Clement 
of Alexandria twice refers to statements in the Gospel of the Egyptians 
(Strom., iii. 9, 13). In the so-called II. Ep. of Clement of Rome are 
several pasages thought to be from this Gospel, but the source is not 
named. See Lightfoot's Clement, pp. 192, 193, 297 seq., 311. Clement of 
Alexandria thrice (Strom., ii. 9, iii. 4, vii. 13) cites passages from The 
Traditions, which was not improbably another name of the Gospel of 
Matthias. 

Of these authors Pseudo-Clement is the only one who seems to at- 



THE GOSPELS A FAITHFUL RECORD. 209 

These citations in the Fathers, however, involve no sanc- 
tion of the books from which they are taken. Clem- 
ent of Alexandria quotes the Gospel of the Egyptians, 
but he quotes it to condemn it. If in the second cen- 
tury, as well as later, the Gospels of the canon were 
not the authorities from which the Church derived its 
knowledge of the life and teachings of Jesus, there is 
no known source whence that knowledge could have 
been obtained. 

Celsus, the most distinguished literary opponent of 
Christianity in the second century, may be joined with 
the Gnostics as an indirect witness for the Gospels of 
the canon. He wrote, perhaps, as early as Marcus An- 
toninus (A.D. 138-161) ; but if, as Keim thinks, he com- 
posed his book under Marcus Aurelius, in A.D. 178, he 
was a contemporary of Irenseus. 1 He had the Christian 
literature before him. He showed no lack of industry 
in searching out whatever could be made to tell against 
the Christian cause. As in the case of Justin, the gos- 
pel history can be constructed out of the passages cited 
from Celsus by Origen. 2 But there is not an incident 
or a saying which professes to be taken from Christian 
authorities that is not found in the canonical Gospels. 3 

tribute authority to the book to which he refers. The Gospel of the 
Egyptians was used by an ascetic sect, the Eucratites (Clern. Alex., 
iii. 9). The Encratite tendencies of the Homily of Pseudo-Clement 
are noticed by Bishop Lightfoot, Clement of Rome : Appendix, p. 311. 

1 Keim, Celsus' Wahres "Wort, p. 273. 

2 See the summaries of the work of Celsus, by Doddridge and Leland, 
in Lardner's Credibility, etc., ii. 27 seq., and the work of Keim, as 
above. 

8 Origen (Adv. Cel., ii. 74) says, " Now we have proved that many 
foolish assertions, opposed to the narratives of our Gospels, occur in 
the statements of the Jew " [in Celsus], etc. But these " foolish asser- 
tions," as an inspection of the previous portion of Origen's work de- 
monstrates, are comments on the gospel history, not pretending to come 
from any Gospels. 



210 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

With all of these, as Kcim, allows, 1 he shows himself 
acquainted. Had there been apocryphal Gospels which 
had attained to any considerable circulation in the 
Church, even at a date thirty or forty years previous to 
the time when he wrote, this astute controversialist 
would have found copies of them, and would have 
availed himself of the welcome aid to be derived from 
their inventions. 

Passing by other proofs, we proceed to consider one 
testimony to the Gospels which carries us back into 
the company of the immediate followers of Christ. It 
is that of Papias, bishop of Hierapolis. He is spoken 
of by Irenaeus as "a man of the old time." 2 He was a 
contemporary of Polycarp, 3 who was born A.D. 69, and 
died A.D. 155. He had also known the daughters of 
Philip, — either the apostle, or (less probably) the evan- 
gelist. 4 He is said by Irenaeus to have been a disciple 
of John the Apostle ; but a doubt is cast on the correct- 
ness of this statement by Eusebius. 5 This is certain, 
that he knew Aristion, and John the Presbyter, — two 
immediate disciples of Jesus, 6 who probably formed a 
part of a company of apostles and their followers who 
left Palestine for Asia Minor about A.D. 67, on the 
outbreak of the Jewish war. In the passages which 
Eusebius has preserved from Papias, he speaks only of 
Mark and Matthew. The silence of Eusebius, however, 
as to any mention of Luke and John by Papias, has 
been demonstrated not to imply, in the least, that these 
Gospels were not referred to and used by him. 7 The 
avowed purpose of Eusebius in these notices, and his 
practice in other similar cases, would not lead us to ex- 

i P. 230. 2 Adv. Hfcr., v. 33, 4. 3 Irenreus, 1. c. 

4 Eusebius, H. E., iii. :i!i. 5 Eusebius, 1. e. « Ibid. 

"' See Lightfoot, Contemporary Review, January, 1875. 



THE GOSPELS A FAITHFUL RECORD. 211 

pect any allusion to what Papias might saj of the other 
Gospels, unless it were something new, or of special 
interest. Now, Papias was informed by John the Pres- 
byter, a contemporary of the apostle of the same name 
at Ephesus, that Mark was the interpreter of Peter, and 
wrote down accurately what he 'heard Peter relate of 
the sayings and doings of Jesus. The same statement 
respecting the relation of Mark to Peter, and the origin 
of the second Gospel, is made by Clement of Alexan- 
dria, 1 Irenseus, 2 and Tertullian. 3 It was the undisputed 
belief of the ancient church. It is borne out by the 
internal traits of Mark's Gospel. 4 It would seem as if 
there could be no doubt in regard to the book of which 
Papias is speaking. Yet it has been maintained by 
some, that a primitive Mark, of which the Gospel of 
the canon is an expansion, is the work referred to. 
Most of these critics, to be sure, including Professor 
Holtzmann, have made the primitive Gospel embrace 
the main parts of our Mark. On what is this theory 
founded ? First, on the statement in Papias, that 
Mark, though he omitted nothing that he heard, but 
reported it accurately, was precluded from recording 
" in order " (lv <ra£e<.) the matter thus derived from the 
oral addresses of ^eter. But this remark is, no doubt, 
founded on a comparison of Mark with Matthew, 
where the sayings of Christ are often differently dis- 
posed; or with Luke, who specially aimed at an orderly 
arrangement ; or, as Bishop Lightfoot thinks, with 
John, where the sequence of events is more carefully 
preserved. 5 It may be nothing more than a subjective 

1 Eusebius, H. E., ii. 15. 2 Irenseus, Adv. Haer., iii. 10, (J. 

3 Adv. Marc, iv. 5. 4 See Weiss, Marcusevangelium, Einl , p. 2. 

5 Contemporary Review, October, 1875. " Per ordinem profitetur," 
says the Muratorian canon, alter referring to Mark in terms like iboso 
used by fapias. 



212 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

impression of Papias or of liis informant. There is no 
sign that either Papias himself, or Eusebius, or Clement, 
or Irenseus, or any other ancient writer, had heard of 
any other book by Mark than our second Gospel. It 
is morally impossible that any other Mark could have 
existed in the time of Papias and Polycarp, and have 
been silently superseded by the Gospel of the canon, 
without any knowledge of the fact reaching Irenseus 
and his contemporaries. The second reason given for 
the conjecture respecting an earlier Gospel of Mark 
is founded on a certain hypothesis as to the relation 
of the synoptical Gospels to one another, and to the 
authorship of the first of them. It is assumed by 
the critics of whom we are speaking, that Matthew's 
authorship extended only to the compilation of the dis- 
courses of Jesus, and that the narrative portion of his 
Gospel is from another hand. Papias states that " Mat- 
thew wrote the oracles (ja Adyia) in the Hebrew tongue, 
and every one interpreted them as he could." It is 
assumed that the narrative portion of the first Gospel 
is mainly derived from Mark ; and then, from the fact 
that, by way of exception, in certain passages Matthew's 
Gospel appears to be the more original of the two, it is 
inferred that the corresponding passages in the second 
Gospel are of a later date than the body of its con- 
tents. But learned writers, such as Professor Weiss, 
who give the restricted sense to the term Logia as 
designating the discourses of Jesus, still maintain, with 
reason, that, even on this interpretation of the term, 
narrative matter was, to some degree, associated by the 
Apostle Matthew with his record of the sayings of 
Jesus. 1 The theory of a primitive Mark is thus wholly 
gratuitous, even on the general ground taken by the 

1 See bis Mattliausevangelium, Eiiil., p. 17 seq. 



THE GOSPELS A FAITHFUL RECORD. 213 

critics in question respecting the original work of Mat- 
thew. 1 But the confident assertion of so many German 
critics since Schleiermacher, that the Logia of Papias 
means "discourses" simply — things said, to the exclus- 
ion of things done, by Jesus — is not proved either on 
philological or other grounds. 2 There is no proof that 
any writer of the second century made the distinction 
between a Matthew composed of discourses alone, and 
the Gospel in its later form. Unless the use of the 
term Logia contains decisive evidence to the contrary, 
we must conclude that Papias intended to give an ac- 
count of the composition of the Gospel in its present 
compass. 

If, on the ground that Logia in Papias is interpreted 
to mean " discourses," or for other reasons, it is held 
that the Gospel as composed by Matthew embraced 
only the teachings of Christ, with brief historical memo- 
randa essential to an intelligible record of them, and 
that, on the basis of this primitive Matthew, the first 
Gospel as we have it was composed by another, still 
this later author stands in the same rank, as regards 
authority and credibility, with the second and third 
evangelists. The date of the work as it now stands is 
determined, as will be seen, by internal evidence of a 
conclusive character. So much is clear, that the writ- 
ing to which Papias refers no longer had need to be 
translated : his use of the aorist proves that that neces- 
sity was a thing of the past. 3 

1 The theory of an Ur-Markus has been given up by its author, Pro- 
fessor Holtzmann. See Weiss's Leben Jesu, i. 32. 

2 See Bishop Lightfoot's remarks, Contemp. Review, 1875, p. 399 seq. 
8 In connection with the testimony of Papias to the first Gospel, it 

may be added, that in the Epistle ascribed to Barnabas, which is not 
later than A.D. 120, a passage found in Matthew is introduced by the 
words, " As it is written;" which were usual in quoting from a sacred 
scripture (Barnabas iv. 14). 



214 THE GROUNDS OF TIIEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

Although the statements cited by Eusebius from' 
Papias relate not to Luke, but to Mark and Matthew, 
it happens that there is nearly contemporary evidence 
of striking value from another source. Marcion came 
from Asia Minor to Rome about A.D. 140. 1 His heresy 
involved a rejection of the apostles, with the exception 
of Paul, for the reason that he deemed them tainted 
with Judaic error. The fathers who oppose Marcion 
describe him as having rejected the Gospels, with the 
exception of Luke. He did not deny that the other 
Gospels were genuine productions of their reputed 
authors (there is no hint that he did) ; but he selected 
Luke as his authority, he having been an associate of 
Paul, and made a gospel for himself by cutting out of 
Luke's work passages which he considered incongruous 
with his doctrinal theories. 2 That Marcion's Gospel was 
an abridgment of our Luke is now conceded on all hands, 
even by the author of Supernatural Religion. Dr. San- 
day has not only demonstrated this by a linguistic 
argument, but has proved, by a comparison of texts, 
that the Gospel of the canon must have been for some 
time in use, and have attained to a considerable circu- 
lation, before Marcion applied to it his pruning-knife. 3 
There is no reason to doubt that he took for his purpose 
a Gospel of established authority in the church. 

But we have Luke's own unimpeachable testimony. 
In the prologue of the Gospel he states that his in- 
formation was derived from the immediate disciples of 
Christ. 4 Unless the author who collected and preserved 

1 See Justin, Apol., i. 26, 58. 

2 Tertullian, De Praescript. Haerett., c. 38. 

;! The Gospels in the Second Century, chap. viii. The priority of 
Luke to Marcion's Gospel is admitted in the seventh edition of Super- 
natural Religion. 

4 Luke i. 2. 



THE GOSPELS A FAITHFUL RECORD. 215 

such passages of the Saviour's teaching as the parables 
of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan, and as 
the story of the Pharisee and the Publican, lied, he was 
an associate of immediate followers of Jesus. More- 
over, in the Acts, which undoubtedly has a common 
authorship with the Gospel, he distinctly discloses him- 
self, though in a perfectly artless and incidental way, 
as having been a companion of the Apostle Paul in a 
part of his journeying. There is no other explanation 
of the passages in which the writer speaks in the first 
person plural, 1 unless an intentional fraud is imputed 
to him ; and this is the most unreasonable explanation 
of all. It is now generally conceded that Luke is 
the author of the narrative of the shipwreck and of the 
connected passages, where the writer speaks in the first 
person. For a later writer to take up these quotations, 
and, still more, to assimilate them to his own style, 
would be a flagrant attempt at imposture. Had a later 
writer wished to cheat his readers into a belief that he 
had been an attendant of Paul, he would not have 
failed to make his pretension more prominent. There 
is the same consensus in the tradition respecting the 
association of Luke with Paul that we find with regard 
to the connection of Mark with Peter. 2 

The objection that was formerly made by the Tubin- 
gen school to the genuineness of the third Gospel and 
of the Acts, on the ground of an alleged misrepresen- 
tation, especially in the latter book, of the relations 
of the older apostles to Paul, and of the Jewish to the 
Gentile branches of the church in the apostolic age, is 
swept away by the admission of independent critics, 

1 Acts xvi. 10-10, xx. 5-xxviii. 31. 

2 Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., iii. 1, 1; Tertullian, Adv. Marc, iv. 2; cf. Ep. 
to Philemon, vcr. 24: Col. iv. 14; 2 Tim. iv. 11. 



216 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

that the Tubingen premise was without foundation in 
fact, and that the representation of Luke, in his record 
of the council (Acts xv.), and elsewhere, is in substan- 
tial accordance with the statements of Paul in the 
Galatians and in his other Epistles. 1 

The evidence, the most important points of which 
have been sketched above, proves the genuineness of 
the first three Gospels. We have, however, within 
these Gospels themselves, proofs of their early date of 
a convincing character. The most important of these 
internal evidences is the form of the eschatological dis- 
course of Jesus. In Matthew especially, but also in the 
other synoptical Gospels, the second advent of Christ 
is set in apparent juxtaposition with the destruction 
of Jerusalem. 2 There is not room here to review the 
various attempts of exegetes to remove the difficulties 
which this circumstance involves. The reader, in inter- 
preting these passages, may adopt whatever hypothesis 
pleases him best. I will only remark, that Jesus is 
proved not to have foretold his advent to judgment as 
an event to follow immediately upon the destruction 
of Jerusalem, by the rjarable of the Marriage-feast, in 
Matt, xxii., where the mission to the heathen (ver. 10) 
is pictured as subsequent to the downfall and burning 
of that city. The same thing is decisively proved, also, 
by the parable of the Householder (Matt. xxi. 33-42), 
where, after the destruction of the husbandmen, the 
vineyard is to be "let out to other husbandmen;" 
to which it is added, " The kingdom of God shall be 
taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth 
the fruits thereof" (ver. 43). The same conclusion is 

i See Mangold, in Bleek's Einl. in d. N. T. (ed. 3), p. 390, n.; and 
especially Keina, Aus dem Urchristenthum, pp. (54-89. 
a Matt. xxiv. 29, 34; Mark xiii. 19, 24, 30; Luke xxi. 32. 



THE GOSPELS A FAITHFUL RECORD. 217 

likewise deducible from the parables of the Mustard- 
seed and the Leaven, not to speak of other teaching 
of like purport. At the same time, it will not be 
questioned by the soundest interpreters, that, had any- 
considerable interval elapsed between the capture of 
Jerusalem by the Romans in the year 70, and the 
composition of the synoptical Gospels, other phraseol- 
ogy would have been used by the evangelists, or at 
least some explanation thrown in respecting the chrono- 
logical relation of that event to the advent to judg- 
ment. We have therefore, in the passages referred to, 
satisfactory evidence that the first three Gospels were 
in existence, if not before, at least very soon after, 
A.D. 70. And the same reasoning proves that they 
existed in their present form and compass. The es- 
chatological discourse in Matthew, for example, is 
homogeneous in style with the rest of the Gospel ; and, 
in any revision later than the date given above, these 
perplexing statements would not have been left un- 
altered or unexplained. 

The long and searching inquiry on the question of 
the origin and mutual relation of the first three Gospels 
has not been without substantial results. 1 The great 
influence of an oral tradition which shaped itself at 
Jerusalem, where the apostles remained for years, and 
whose repetition of the Lord's sayings and acts would 
tend to acquire a fixed form, is now generally acknowl- 
edged. The independence of Mark in relation to the 
other evangelists is an assured fact. The priority of 
Mark in respect to date of composition, if not so unani- 
mously accepted, is favored by a large body of learned 
scholars. Leading English critics are disposed to claim 

1 For a full survey <>f the history of this inquiry, see Schaff's History 
of the Christian Church, vol. i. p. 5'JO seq. 



218 THE GROUNDS OF TIIEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

for the oral tradition a larger agency in accounting for 
the resemblances of the synoptists to one another than 
German critics consider it possible to assume. Profes- 
sor Westcott favors the hypothesis that Matthew wrote 
his Gospel in the Aramaic ; that the Aramaic oral tradi- 
tion which he took up had its contemporaneous parallel 
in a Greek oral tradition ; that, about the time of the 
destruction of Jerusalem, the Aramaic Gospel was not 
exactly rendered into Greek, but its contents exchanged 
for the Greek oral counterpart ; that the disciple who 
thus transferred the Aramaic first Gospel of Matthew 
into Greek added here and there certain historical mem- 
oranda. In this way he would account for the resem- 
blances of the matter contained in the synoptists. 1 

Professor Weiss, in common with critics of the Ger- 
man school, of whom he is one of the most eminent, 
holds that the peculiarities of the synoptists cannot be 
explained by the influence of oral tradition alone. We 
must assume an interdependence. His view is, that 
the oldest Gospel was an Aramaic writing of Matthew, 
composed mainly, but not exclusively, of discourses of 
Christ, arranged in groups ; that this was rendered into 
Greek ; that, immediately after the capture of Jeru- 
salem by Titus, it was amplified by historical matter, 
drawn mainly from Mark, — the second Gospel having 
been previously written, as the ecclesiastical tradition 
affirms, by the same Mark who had attended Barnabas 
and Paul, and who afterwards was a companion of 
Peter ; that the third Gospel was composed by Luke, 
the companion of Paul, who, in addition to other sources 
of information, written and oral, made use of the oldest 
document, the writing of Matthew, and the narrative 

1 Westcott's Introduction to the Gospels, pp. 213, 214, 231, n. 



THE GOSPELS A FAITHFUL RECORD. 219 

of Mark ; that Luke's Gospel was composed not much 
later than the " first decennium after A.D. 70." 1 

From the foregoing statements it will be seen how 
small, comparatively, is the divergence of the different 
schools of judicious critics, so far as their conclusions 
have a bearing on the historical evidences of Christian- 
ity. The early formation, under the eyes and by the 
agency of the immediate disciples of Jesus, of an oral 
narrative of his sayings and of the events of his life ; 
its wide diffusion ; its incorporation into the second 
Gospel, prior to the destruction of Jerusalem, by an 
author who had listened to Peter ; the authorship of the 
foundation, at least, of the first Gospel by the Apostle 
Matthew; the completion of the first Gospel in its 
present compass at about the date of the fall of the 
city, and the consequent dispersion of the Christians, 
who fled at the coming of the Romans ; the composi- 
tion of Luke by a Christian writer who had access to 
immediate testimony, as well as to writings in which 
this testimony had been set down by disciples situated 
like himself, — these are facts which erudite and candid 
scholars, both German and English, whose researches 
entitle them to speak with confidence, unite in affirming. 

A few words may be said upon the integrity of the 
Gospels. The guaranty of this is the essential agree- 
ment of the existing manuscripts, which would not 
be possible had the early texts been tampered with. 
Renan speaks of the little authority which the texts of 
the Gospels had for about a " hundred years : " in his 
first edition he wrote " a hundred and fifty." " They 
had no scruple," he adds, " about inserting in them 
paragraphs combining the narratives diversely, or com- 
pleting some by others. The poor man who has but 

1 Weiss's Lebea Jesu, B. i. p. 24-84. 



220 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

one book wishes it to contain every thing that comes 
home to his heart. They lent these little rolls to one 
another. Every one transcribed on the margin of his 
copy the words, the parables, which he found elsewhere, 
and which moved him." 1 These statements are ex- 
aggerated. There is no proof that the Gospels were 
treated with this degree of license. Had they been so 
treated, the differences consequent upon it must have 
perpetuated themselves in the copies derived from the 
early texts. With regard to Renan's solitary example of 
an insertion of any length, — John viii. 1-11 (he might 
have added one more, Mark xvi. 9-20), — these passages 
are doubted, or rejected from the text, by scholars, 
mainly on this very ground of a lack of manuscript 
attestation. No doubt, here and there a marginal anno- 
tation, made for liturgical purposes, or from some other 
innocent motive, has crept into the text. In the second 
century the diversities in the copies of the canonical 
Gospels were considerable. 2 It is the business of text- 
ual criticism to ascertain what readings are to be pre- 
ferred. The statement that the early Christians felt 
no interest whatever in keeping the text of the Gospels 
intact is a pure fiction. 3 

1 Vie de Jesus, 13me ed. p. lv. 

2 See Westcott's History of the Canon of the New Testament, 
p. 149 seq. 

3 Other statements, in the same connection, have even less founda- 
tion. " They attached little importance," says Renan, " to these writ- 
ings,-" — Gospels; "and the collectors (conservateurs), such as Papias, 
in the iirst half of the second century, still preferred to them the oral 
tradition." On the contrary, the work of Papias was itself a commen- 
tary on the Gospels, or on portions of them. In his remark abont his 
esteem of oral tradition, he is not comparing the Gospels with other 
sources of information, but refers to anecdotes respecting them and 
their authors, which he interwove in his comments, and which he pre- 
ferred to derive from oral sources. See Eusebius, H. E., iii. 39. Renan's 
reference to Irenseus (Adv. User., iii. cc. 2, 3) proves nothing to his pur- 



THE GOSPELS A FAITHFUL RECORD. 221 

In these remarks we have turned away for a time 
from the special consideration of the fourth Gospel. 
The more particular discussion of its origin must be 
reserved for another chapter. 

pose. It contains no hint of a preference of tradition to the Gospels, 
Renan further says, "Besides the Gospels that have reached us, there 
were others " — in his first edition he wrote " a multitude of others " — 
" pretending equally to represent the tradition of eye-witnesses." How 
little warrant there is for this statement respecting apocryphal Gospels, 
and how false is the impression which it conveys, have heen shown in 
preceding pages of this chapter. The "many " writers to whom Luke 
refers in his prologue were soon superseded, and passed away. There 
were left no competitors with the Gospels of the canon, and none arose. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 

Eusebius places the Gospel of John in the catalogue 
of the " Homologoumena," — books received without 
dispute by all Christian people. 1 It is fully recognized, 
he tells us, " in all the churches under heaven." Its 
authorship had never been questioned, except in the 
solitary instance of an obscure sect which Epiphanius 
terms " Alogi ; " 2 for there is no reason to doubt that 
these persons, who lived at Thyatira in Lydia, are the 
same to whom Irenoeus refers ; 3 who are noticed, also, 
later by Philastrius ; 4 and against whom, not improba- 
bly, Hippolytus wrote. They were carried, in their 
hostility to Montanism, with its doctrine of prophetical 
gifts and of the Paraclete, into an antipathy to both the 
Apocalypse and the Gospel ; and their tendencies of 
thought sooner or later awakened in them a repugnance 
to the conception of the Logos, or of the pre-existence 
of Christ as a person. Critical objections, on their part, 
to the Gospel, seem to have been an afterthought, due 
to an antagonism which had its origin in a purely sub- 
jective and dogmatic prejudice. Since they discarded 
the Apocalypse, as well as the Gospel, and absurdly as- 
cribed them both to Cerinthus, a contemporary of John, 
their protest, as Zeller allows, 5 affords no indication that 

i II. E., iii. 24, 25. 2 Haer., li. 3, liv. 1. 

» Adv. Hier., iii. 11, 9. * Hasr., 60. 

«> Theol. Jahrbb., 1845, p. 645 seq. 

222 



APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OP THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 223 

any other tradition as to the authorship of the Gospel 
existed, save that existing in the church. No impor- 
tance, then, attaches to the dissent of this insignificant 
party, on which Irenseus thinks it necessary to bestow- 
but a few lines. The ancient church is united in its 
testimony to the genuineness of the fourth Gospel, and 
whoever adopts the contrary opinion is bound to ac- 
count for this consentaneous judgment of antiquity. 

The modern attack on the Johannine authorship, as 
far as it merits serious attention, may be said to have 
begun with the first essay in which Baur took up the 
subject. It was published in 1844. 1 The subsequent 
assailants have followed more or less closely in his foot- 
steps, but they have frequently forgotten or renounced 
the postulates which gave coherence and a degree of 
plausibility to his theory. At the time when he wrote, 
Hegelism was predominant in Germany. On the basis 
of that philosophy the historical speculations of Baur 
were founded. In history, as in the development of 
mind, and in the universe at large, thesis begets anti- 
thesis ; and both, by an inward momentum, are resolved 
into a higher unity. Christianity was treated as an 
example of evolution, passing through successive stages, 
according to the method of the Hegelian logic. The 
church, it was affirmed, was at the outset Ebionitic. 



1 The literature of this controversy (down to I860) is given hy Pro- 
fessor E. Abbot in the American edition of Smith's Dictionary of the 
Bible, art. John, Gospel of. A complete bibliography (down to 1875), 
embracing about live hundred publications, by Mr. C. R. Gregory, is 
appended to the English translation of Luthardt's work, St. John the 
Author of the Fourth Gospel (Edinburgh, 1875). Among the later dis- 
cussions of most value are Bishop Lightfoot's articles (in the Contempo- 
rary Review, 1875-77) in review of Supernatural Religion, Bcyschlag's 
Zur Johanneischen Frage (187(i), Godet'a Introduction hist, ct critique 
to his Comm. sur L'E\ang. do S. Jean (1870), and Professor E. Abbot's 
The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel: the External Evidences (1880). 



224 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

Christ was at first held to be only a human prophet 
filled with the Spirit. Then arose the opposite pole 
of Paulinism, leading to the conflict of the two types of 
belief, and of the followers of Peter and Paul respec- 
tively. The reconciliation ensued, mediated, first, in 
such writings as the Epistles to the Colossians and the 
Philippians, which it was denied that Paul wrote, and 
then in the Logos theology as presented in the Gospel 
and first Epistle, falsely attributed to John. In point 
of fact, this apostle wrote only the Apocalypse : he was 
a Judaizer, like the other primitive apostles. The fourth 
Gospel followed the great Gnostic systems, and was 
composed somewhere between A.D. 160 and A.D. 170. 
In common with the Book of Acts and many other of 
the New-Testament writings, it was a Tendenz-schrift, 
that is, the product of theological bias or theory ; and 
was composed with the intent to pacify contending 
parties. It should be observed that Baur's historical 
speculation was the counterpart of his metaphysics. It 
was a naturalistic view, growing out of an ideal panthe- 
ism. The chronological position assigned to the fourth 
Gospel followed from the assumption that Christianity 
was a development on the plane of nature. It is danger- 
ous to pull away any of the stones in so compact a 
structure. Yet just this, many of the later defenders 
of the proposition of Baur have rashly ventured to do. 
The metaphysical system at the foundation has been 
general^ given up. The date assigned to the Gospel 
has been almost universally abandoned. The force of 
the historical proofs has obliged the critics to push it 
back towards the beginning of the century. They 
have been unable, however, to find a resting-place 
where the composition of the book could be securely 
placed. Keim first put it between A.D. 100 and A.D. 



APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 225 

117, but finally fixed it at A.D. 130. Wherever the 
date is set, obstacles and difficulties spring up to neces- 
sitate a change. Meantime it is frequently overlooked, 
that this departure from Baur on the chronological ques- 
tion imperils the whole scheme of doctrinal development, 
of which his view on this point formed an essential 
element, and thus shakes to the foundation the critical 
fabric so laborously built up by the Tubingen master. 

Moreover, the historical postulates of Baur have been 
proved to be untenable. The " tendency " theory is 
generally admitted by independent critics to have been 
at least a great exaggeration. Such writers as Man- 
gold 1 and Keim, 2 who are quite free from prejudice in 
a conservative direction, maintain that the representa- 
tion in the Acts, of the relation of the older apostles to 
Paul, is substantially consonant with Paul's own tes- 
timony in the Galatians and elsewhere, and with what 
is inherently probable. Neither John nor Peter was a 
Judaizer. Neither demanded that the Gentile converts 
should be circumcised. There was no such chasm to be 
bridged over as Baur assumed to exist. There was no 
such radical change required to convert John into a 
liberal-minded apostle as Baur afiirmed to be necessary. 
This has become evident, whether the apostle was the 
author of the Apocalypse, or not. As to the New-Testa- 
ment writings, Hilgenfeld, 3 probably the ablest living 
representative of the Tubingen school, now holds that 
Paul wrote First Thessalonians and Philippians, together 
with Philemon, in addition to the four great Epistles, — 
First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, and Romans, — 
which Baur had allowed to him. The progress is in the 

i Eloek's Einl. in d. N. T. (ed. Mangold), p. 392. 
T 2 Aus dem Urchris tent hum, pp. 04-89. 

8 Einl. in d. N. T., pp. 239, 331, 333. 



22G THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

right direction, towards the recognition of Colossians and 
Ephesians, — which Reuss has ably defended, 1 — and of 
other Epistles, which, more on subjective than historical 
grounds, have been called in question. But, even as 
the case now stands among the critics, the fundamental 
assumption of the Tubingen school, that the primitive 
type of Christianity was Ebionitic, has no tenable foot- 
ing. That assumption is contradicted, as will appear, 
by the synoptical Gospels. It is contradicted by the 
Epistles of Paul, even by those which on all hands are 
conceded to be genuine. It is unreasonable to assume 
that he introduced most important elements of doctrine 
respecting the person of Christ, which the other apos- 
tles must have known that Paul taught, but against 
which it is not pretended that they uttered a lisp of 
dissent. In this altered state of opinion, when the prem- 
ises of Baur have been so far abandoned, and when 
his hypothesis respecting the date of the Gospel has 
been so variously and essentially modified, it remains to 
be seen whether his general theory as to its authorship 
can longer be maintained. 

The farther back it is found necessary to shift the 
date of the Gospel, the more menacing is the situation 
for the theory of non-apostolic authorship. Keim is not 
alone in the retreat from the old ground taken by Baur 
and Volckmar. Hilgenfeld is not disposed to deny that 
the fourth Gospel was used by Justin, and therefore 
places its origin between A.D. 130 and A.D. 140. Renan, 
after not a little vacillation, now holds that it saw the 
light in A.D. 125 or A.D. 130. Schenkel fixes on a date 
ten years earlier, — A.D. 115-120 ; which is somewhat 
later than the limits first assigned by Keim. When it 
is considered that the Apostle John, according to the 

1 Gesch. d. heiligen Schriften d. N. T., i. 107 seq. 



APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 227 

universal and well-grounded tradition of the ancient 
church, died at a very advanced age, at Ephesus, Keim's 
opinion, even his final opinion, as to the date when the 
Gospel was in use, would appear to exclude absolutely 
the assumption that it was a spurious work. How could 
a book of this kind be palmed off on the churches, in- 
cluding the church at Ephesus, with no longer interval 
between its appearance and the apostle's death? To 
meet the exigency, Keim boldly affirmed that the Apos- 
tle John never lived at Ephesus, and that the belief of 
the ancient church, that he resided there and died there, 
was all a mistake ! This was to strike at the corner- 
stone of the Tubingen historical theory, which rested 
on the Johannine authorship of the Apocalypse. Keim's 
novel and adventurous opinion has been effectually con- 
futed by Hilgenfeld 1 and Krenkel. 2 The supposition 
that Irenaeus confounded John the Apostle with another 
John — John the Presbyter — is next to impossible. He 
had a perfectly distinct recollection of Polycarp, and of 
his reminiscences of the apostle. His connection with 
Irenseus was not in his childhood, but in the early part 
of his manhood ; that is, of that era included between 
the ages of seventeen or eighteen and thirty-five or 
forty. 3 Moreover, it was not one or two interviews 
with Polycarp, but the continued relation and inter- 
course of a pupil, which Irenseus describes. 4 In a letter 
to Victor, bishop of Rome, Irenseus referred to the visit 
of Polycarp to that city (A.D. 155), and to the appeal 
which that venerable bishop made to the instruction 

i Einl. in d. N. T., pp. 394 seq. 

2 Der Apostel Johannes, pp. 133 seq. On this topic, see also Steitz, 
Stud. u. Kritik. (18G8), pp. 467 seq. 

8 See Zahn's art., Irenreus, in Herzog u. Plitt's Real-Encycl., vii. 136 
seq.; Canon Venables, in Smith and Waco's Diet, of Biography, iii. 254. 

4 See Zahn's art. (as above), p. 136. 



228 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

which he had received from John and other apostles. 1 
If there was an error in this statement of Irenseus, it 
would have been evident at Rome, where the facts con- 
cerning Polycarp's visit were remembered. It is not 
alone from Potycarp directly that Irenseus was informed 
of his recollections of John. The story of the apostle's 
meeting the heretic Cerinthus in the bath, he had 
received from individuals to whom Polycarp had related 
it. 2 Not Polycarp alone, but other elders also who had 
known John, are referred to by Irenseus. Polycarp was 
' not the sole link connecting him with John. 3 He had, 
moreover, before him the work of Papias, in which the 
apostle is plainly distinguished from the presbyter of 
the same name. Keim's hypothesis attributes to Irenseus 
an incredible misunderstanding. If he was in error 
in saying that Papias had been taught by the apostle, 
of which we cannot be certain, this circumstance will 
not for a moment warrant such an inference as Keim 
would deduce from it. As Renan says, we cannot 
suppose a falsehood on the part of Irenseus ; but this, 
as the same writer implies, we should have to suppose, 
if we held that John did not live in Asia. 4 Other wit- 
nesses besides Irenseus testify to the sojourn of the 
apostle there, — Apollonius, an Asiatic bishop and an 
earlier writer ; 5 Polycrates, himself a bishop of Ephesus, 
who was born as early as A.D. 125 ; 6 Clement of Alex- 
andria, who relates the incident — whether it be true or 
not is immaterial in the present argument — of John's 
conversion of the apostate youth who had become a 
robber. 7 Other early legends relating to the apostle 
imply at least the knowledge that he had lived at Ephe- 

1 Irerueus (ed. Stieren), i., fragm. iii. p. 826. 

2 Adv. Haer., iii. 3, 4. 8 See this work, p. 185 seq. 
4 Les Evangiles, p. 425, n. 2. 6 Eusebius, H. E., v. 18. 

6 Ibid., v. 24. i Ibid., iii. 23. 



APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 229 

sus. Justin Martyr (A.D. 140-160), and all others who 
attribute the Apocalypse to the Apostle John, virtually 
testify to the same fact. Keim holds that the author of 
the Gospel, whoever he was, proceeded on the supposi- 
tion that John had lived in Asia Minor ; so that at least 
as early as A.D. 130 the belief must have prevailed that 
the apostle had dwelt there. The traces of the influ- 
ence of John in Asia were distinct and permanent. 
There was in reality, as Lightfoot has shown, a later 
"school of John," — a class of writers coming after 
Polycarp and Papias, and including Melito of Sardis, 
Claudius Apollinaris, and Poly crates, — who bear in- 
contestable marks of the peculiar influence of John's 
teaching. 1 Keim's conjecture falls to the ground before 
these strong and multiplied historical proofs. 

Irenseus states that the Apostle John was alive at the 
accession of Trajan, A.D. 98. 2 With this positive asser- 
tion of one who was in a position to ascertain the fact 
agree the traditions relative to John as an old man, to 
which reference has been made in later ecclesiastical 
writers. Clement's account of the rescue of the outlaw 
chief, and Jerome's interesting narrative of the aged 
apostle's method of addressing his flock, 3 indicate a gen- 
eral belief that his life was protracted to extreme old 
age. We are authorized, by evidence which cannot be 
successfully impugned, in picturing to ourselves the 
Apostle John, near the close of the first century, at; 
Ephesus, a flourishing centre of Christianity, surrounded 
by disciples whom he had trained, and who, in common 
with the churches in all that district, looked up to him 
with affectionate reverence. And now, if he did not 
write the Gospel which bears his name, how did those 

1 Cont. Review, February, 187G, p. 471 scq. 

2 Adv. Haer., ii. 22, 5, iii. 3, 4. 3 Hieron., In Gal., vi. 



230 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

disciples and churches come to believe that he did ? 
How did all the churches in the second century acquire 
the same conviction ? Many of those disciples of John 
were living at the time when the Gospel is admitted to 
have been in circulation. But nothing would be gained 
for the sceptical cause if the assumed date of its first 
appearance could be brought down to a later day. 
Where had this remarkable document lain during the 
long interval ? What warrant was there for accepting 
a narrative so unique, so different from the first three 
Gospels and from the established tradition? Can we 
believe that there was nobody to ask these questions ? 
Is it credible that a new history of Jesus would have 
made its way, under these circumstances, to universal 
acceptance without the least scrutiny ? If spurious, 
very little inquiry would have sufficed to expose its 
false pretensions. The striking peculiarities of the 
Gospel, not to speak of the fact, which demanded 
explanation, of its late appearance, would have com- 
pelled doubt and dispute. The microscopic examina- 
tion of particular passages in the Fathers, and the 
discussion of special points of evidence about which a 
contest may be raised, has availed of late to cover as 
in a mist the more comprehensive features of proof. 
The great strength of the external argument for the 
genuineness of the Gospel has seldom been justly appre- 
ciated by friend or foe. 

When we turn from these general considerations, to 
consider the use of the Gospel by particular writers in 
the second century, one is struck at seeing how much 
of the ground which Baur attempted to seize has been 
surrendered by the ablest critics of the negative school. 
Keim holds that the fourth Gospel was among the 
Gospels known to Marcion, that Justin Martyr derives 



APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 231 

quotations from it, that it antedated the Epistles of 
Barnabas and the Ignatian Epistles, and that it was 
used as early in the extant literature of the church as 
were the first three Gospels. 1 Mangold goes almost as 
far. He admits that there is no defect in the external 
evidence. 2 What more satisfactory attestation is re- 
quired? In the succinct review of the evidence which 
it is proposed to give here, it will be taken for granted 
that the Gospel and first Epistle are from the same 
pen. Baur and Hilgenfeld denied this ; but their dif- 
ference from one another on the question, which was 
the primitive work and which the secondar}^, is an argu- 
ment for the identity of authorship, — an opinion which 
is supported as well by the strongest internal evidence 
as by the uniform tradition. 

Eusebius, in the first quarter of the fourth century, 
with much of the earliest Christian literature in his 
hands which is now lost, knew of no dispute respecting 
the authorship of this Gospel. Origen, one of the most 
erudite of scholars, whose birth from Christian parents 
fell within the limits of the second century (A.D. 185), 
counts it among " the only undisputed Gospels in the 
church of God under the whole heavens." 3 In conso- 
nance with Irenaeus his contemporary, Clement of Alex- 
andria reports what he had heard from the oldest pres- 
byters. John, he says, wrote a "spiritual Gospel," 
being encouraged to this task by his friends, and urged 
by the Spirit. 4 The Muratorian canon gives with more 
detail a tradition of like purport. The apostle had 
been exhorted to write, it tells us, by his fellow-disci- 
ples and bishops. Justin Martyr has quotations which 
are undoubtedly traceable to this Gospel ; and from 

i Gesch. Jesh, i. 137. 2 Bleek'a Einl. in d. N. T. (ed. 3), p. 281, n. 

s Eusebius, H. E., vi. 25. * ibid., vi. 14. 



232 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

no other source could lie have derived his doctrine 
of the person of Christ. 1 It formed one of the four at 
the basis of the Diatesseron of Tatian, 2 Justin's pupil. 
Theophilus, a contemporary of Tatian, who became 
bishop of Antioch A.D. 169, "describes the fourth Gos- 
pel as one of the Holy Scriptures, and John as guided 
by the Holy Spirit. 3 He wrote a commentary on the 
Gospels, and somehow combined the four in a single 
work. 4 Athenagoras, a contemporary of Theophilus, 
speaks of Christ in terms which are obviously founded 
on passages in this Gospel. 5 Melito, bishop of Sardis, 
spoke of the ministry of Jesus as lasting for three years, 
— a fact, in all probability, derived from the fourth 
Gospel. 6 Another contemporary, Apollinaris, bishop of 
Hierapolis, indirectly but manifestly implies its exist- 
ence and authority. 7 It may here be observed, that Cel- 
sus, the most noted of the opponents of Christianity in 
the second century, resorted to the fourth Gospel, as 
well as to the first three, to get materials for his attack. 8 
It was probably used by Hennas; 9 and traces, though 
less distinct, of its use, are not wanting in the Epistle 
ascribed to Barnabas. 10 Polycarp, in addition to the in- 
ference as to his use of the Gospel which may be drawn 
with the highest degree of probability from the rela- 
tions of Irena3us to him, introduces into his own brief 
Epistle to the Philippians a passage which is found in 

i See this work, p. 193 seq. 

2 Ibid p 204; Bishop Lightfoot's art., Cont. Review, May, 1877. 

3 Ad Autolycum, ii. 22. * Hieron., De viris illustr., 25; Epp., 151. 

5 Suppl. pro Christianis, c. 10. 

6 See Otto's Corpus Apol., t. ix. p. 416. 

7 Chron. Pasch., pp. 13, 14. 8 See this work, p. 209 

9 Simil ix. 12, cf. John x. 7, 9, xiv. 6 ; Mand., xii. 3, cf. 1 John v. 3. 

io Keim is confident that proofs of the use of the fourth Gospel are 
contained in the Ep. of Barnabas. But see Luthardt, p. 76 ; Sanday, 
Gospels in the Second Century, pp. 270-273; Cunningham, Dissert, on 
the Ep. of Barnabas, etc., p. 60. 



APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 233 

no other book but the first Epistle of John'. 1 As to 
Papias, there is not the least evidence to disprove his 
acquaintance with the fourth Gospel ; since the silence 
of Eusebius on this topic affords not the slightest pre- 
sumption that Papias made no mention of it. 2 But 
Eusebius does expressly state that Papias used the 
first Epistle of John, 3 this being one of the catholic 
Epistles the use of which by the early writers was a 
matter which it belonged to the plan of Eusebius to re- 
cord. Irenseus cites from " elders," the contemporaries 
of Papias, an interpretation of the words of Christ in 
John xiv. 2, 4 and attributes to them an idea relative 
to the length of the Saviour's ministry, which sprang 
up from a misunderstanding of John viii. 57. 5 These 
testimonies sweep over the century. They carry us 
back to the lifetime of the contemporaries and pupils 
of John. Finally, appended to the Gospel itself is an 
indorsement emanating from those into whose hands 
it was first given (John xxi. 24). It is an independent 
attestation, distinct from that given by the author him- 
self, and not to be distrusted without imputing to him 
a reduplicated, intricate fraud. 

Let us glance now at the parties without the pale of 
the church. Tertullian distinctly implies that Marcion 
(A.D. 140) was acquainted with John's Gospel, but 
cast it aside because he would acknowledge no other 
of the apostles than Paul. 6 We have little information 
respecting the canon of the Montanists, but there is no 
hint that they rejected the fourth Gospel. The Basi- 
lidians and the Valentinians, Gnostic sects which arose 
in the second quarter of the second century, made use 

i Ad Phil., 7. 

2 See Bishop Lightfoot's art., Cont. Review, January, 1875. 

8 H. E., iii. 39. 4 Adv. ILer., v. 36, 2. 6 um., ii. 22, 5. 

• Adv. Marcion, iv. 3, cf. c. 2 ; De Game Christi, c. 3. 



234 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

of it ; the Valentinians, Irenseus tells us, abundant use 
of it, seeking to bolster up their strange opinions by 
a perverse interpetation of its contents. 1 Heracleon, 
a follower of Valentinus, wrote a commentary upon it, 
from which Origen quotes largely. 2 Tertullian expli- 
citly says that Valentinus himself used all of the four 
Gospels, 3 and Irenseus nowhere implies the contrary. 
If there is room for a doubt whether Hippolytus derived 
those comments upon certain places in the Gospel 
which he quotes, from Valentinus himself, or from a 
disciple, there is little occasion for a similar doubt in 
regard to his references to Basilides. 4 Basilides flour- 
ished under Hadrian (A.D. 117-138). Valentinus 
came to Rome about A.D. 140. In the middle of the 
second century the debate between the church and 
the Gnostic heresiarchs was raging. Justin speaks 
in the severest terms of reprobation of Marcion and his 
followers, of the Valentinians, Basilidians, and the sect 
of Satuiiinus. 5 Their doctrines he calls blasphemous. 
Now, all of these parties on the one hand, and the 
defenders of orthodoxy on the other, acknowledge in 
common the fourth Gospel. The Gnostics did not ques- 
tion its apostolic authorship, but resorted to artificial 
interpretation of its contents ; and the church teachers 
had no heavier task than to expose the fantastic char- 
acter of their exegesis. The beginnings of the great 
controversy are as early as the Apocalypse, the Pasto- 
ral Epistles, and the Epistle to the Colossians. How 

i Adv. Hair., iii. 11, 7. 

2 For Origen's references, see Grabe's Spicilegium, vol. ii., or Stie- 
ren's ed. of Iraenus, i. 938-971. 

8 De Prsescript., c. 38. For the sense of " videtur " in the passage, 
see this work, p. 208. 

4 Hippolytus, Ref. omn. Hser., vii. 22, 27. See Professor E. Abbot, 
The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel, p. 86. 

6 Dial., c. 35, cf. Apol., i. 26. 



APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 235 

and when could this Gospel, if it be spurious, have been 
brought in, have secured universal acceptance among 
the belligerent parties, and been adopted as an author- 
ity by both? Who could have had the intellectual 
skill requisite to frame a book of such a character as 
to obtain this honor and deference from the champions 
of antagonistic types of doctrine ? If the work was 
known to emanate from an apostle, no explanation is 
required ; since the Gnostics, Marcion excepted, did not 
profess to reject the authority of the apostles. If it 
was a forged composition, first appearing decades of 
years after the death of John, its reception by orthodox 
and heretic alike must remain an unsolved enigma. 

Leaving the external proofs, we turn to the internal 
evidence. Here we meet at once the standing objection, 
that the catholic tone of the author, and, in particular, 
his method of speaking of " the Jews " as an alien body, 
are inconsistent with the character and position of 
John. The reader must bear in mind, however, that 
John was never the Judaizer whom the Tubingen critics 
have painted him, but was the apostle who gave the 
right hand of fellowship to the apostle to the Gentiles 
(Gal. ii. 9). He is not writing at the early day when 
the Jewish Christians kept up the legal observances 
in the temple, and hoped for a vast influx of converts 
from their countrymen. The temple lay in ruins. The 
full meaning of the Master, when he said, "In this 
place is one greater than the temple " (Matt. xii. 6), 
had become apparent to his disciples from the lessons 
of Providence and the teaching of the Spirit. The 
rejection of Jesus the Messiah by the bulk of the Jews, 
which long before filled the Apostle Paul with grief, 
was now a fact beyond all question. The Jewish an- 
tagonism to the church had broken forth, as the Jewish 



236 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

war approached, in acts of violence. At an earlier 
day persecution of the Jewish Christians is referred 
to by Paul (1 Thess. ii. 14), and in the Epistle to the 
Hebrews (x. 32-35). In the year 44, Herod Agrippa I., 
a rigid Jew, had seized and killed John's own brother, 
James. About a score of years later — Hegesippus 
places the event just before the siege of Jerusalem 
by Vespasian — even James the Just, the brother of 
Jesus, who had been least of all offensive to Jewish 
zealots for the old ritual, was stoned to death by the 
fanatical populace and their leaders. Concurrent proofs 
justify the conclusion, that, on the breaking-out of the 
war with the Romans, not only John, but a company 
of disciples, including in their number one or more of 
the other apostles, went to Asia. There at Ephesus, 
in the midst of the Gentile churches, the Apostle John 
continued for many years. He must have been an im- 
passive spectator indeed, not to have read the import 
of the events which made the true significance of 
Christianity, and the position which belonged to it in 
relation to the Old-Testament religion and people, as 
clear as noonday. His must have been a sluggish mind 
indeed, if, even independently of supernatural aid, the 
teaching of Jesus respecting the spiritual and catholic 
nature of religion and of his kingdom had not been 
brought with new vividness to his recollection, and its 
contents more clearly apprehended in the light of the 
revolution which had subverted the Jewish sanctuary 
and state, and of the malignant, persevering hostility 
which had sent him and his fellow-disciples as outcasts 
into the bosom of the churches which Paul had planted 
among the heathen. What is the attitude of this 
Gospel towards the religion and the people of the old 
covenant? If mention is made of " the Jews," the same 



APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 237 

phrase is on the lips of Paul, 1 whose ardent love to his 
countrymen is plain to all his readers. The author of 
the fourth Gospel is a reverent believer in Moses and 
the prophets (i. 47, iv. 22, x. 35). It is from his report 
that we are made acquainted with the pregnant words 
of Jesus, "Salvation is of the Jews" (iv. 22). He is 
represented as having come to " his own " (i. 11) : 
the Jews were " his own " in a peculiar sense. Their 
refusal to receive him is to the author's mind an event 
full of pathos. If the ecclesiastical tradition respecting 
the date of the Gospel and the place and circumstances 
of its composition is accepted, there is nothing in the 
tone of the author in the least incongruous with the 
belief that he was John the Apostle. 

The Tubingen school have insisted that John could 
not have written both the Apocalypse and the Gospel. 
It is true that the differences in style, and in the style 
of thought, between these two books, are such that both 
could hardly have been written at the same time or 
from the same mood of feeling. But that it is impossible 
for an author, who under the influence of the emotions 
roused in him by Jewish and heathen persecutions, in 
the mood of prophetic exaltation, wrote the Revelation, 
to compose works like the Gospel and first Epistle twenty 
or thirty years after, under entirely altered conditions 
of outward and inward experience, is more than can be 
safely affirmed. The Tubingen critics have erroneously 
attributed to the Apocalypse a Judaizing and anti-Pau- 
line spirit. 2 But the same critics have themselves 
pointed out marked resemblances between the Gospel 
and the Apocalypse. Baur styled the Gospel a spiritu- 
alized (yergeistigte^) Apocalypse. It is remarkable that 

1 Gal. i. 13, 14 : " the Jews' religion." 

2 See Weiss, Leben Jesu, p. 98. 



238 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

in the Revelation, Christ is called "the Word [Logos] 
of God " (Rev. xix. 13). Those who are disposed to 
accept the dilemma of the Tubingen school as justified 
are bound in candor to admit that the evidence which 
connects John with the Gospel is decidedly stronger 
than that of his writing the Apocalypse. This is the 
fact as regards even the external proofs. The Book 
of Revelation was not embraced in the Peshito, the 
ancient Syria c version. 

Another objection to the Johannine authorship is 
the alleged indebtedness of the author of the Gospel to 
Philo for the conception of the Logos, or Word, which 
stands at the beginning of the book as a designation of 
Christ in his state of pre-existence. The first remark 
to be made in answer to this allegation is, that the idea 
of the Logos, and the doctrine associated with it, in the 
Gospel, are utterly at variance with the system of Alex- 
andrian-Jewish philosophy, of which Philo is the leading 
representative. In the Gospel, the Logos is personal. 
In Philo, the Logos is predominantly the self-revealing 
potence of the hidden, ineffable Deity. If, as Zeller 
holds, 1 the Logos is ever thought of by Philo as a real 
hypostasis, the passages having this import stand 
opposed to the current of his teaching. Many of the 
soundest expositors of Philo do not concur in the opin- 
ion of Zeller, that the Logos in his writings is ever con- 
ceived of as truly personal. 2 Again : the notion of the 
Logos in Philo is usually the Platonic idea of " reason." 
It is this idea which he more commonly connects with 
the term, and not the Old-Testament conception of the 
Word ; whereas in the Gospel the Platonic conception 

1 Gesch. d. Graech. Phil., iii. 2, p. 329. 

2 See Dorner, Entwicklungsgesch. d. Lehr. von d. Pers. Christ, i. 19, 
23 seq. 



APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 239 

is utterly absent. Once more — and this is the most 
important consideration — the cardinal thought of the 
prologue of the Gospel, that of the incarnation of the 
Logos, is in direct antagonism to the fundamental phi- 
losophy of Philo. His system is dualistic. Matter, in 
his view, is utterly alien to the Deity. Nothing can be 
more repugnant to the system of Philo than the declara- 
tion that " the Logos became flesh " (i. 14). The Judaic 
Gnosticism, which denied the incarnation as any thing 
more than an appearance, or temporary connection of 
the divine Christ with the man Jesus, was the legitimate 
and actual offspring of the Philonian speculation. It 
was Cerinthus, who probably began his career at Alex- 
andria, against whom, according to the declaration of 
Irenaeus, John wrote. Cerinthus carried out the dualis- 
tic theory, and taught that the heavenly Christ joined 
himself to Jesus at his baptism, and forsook him at the 
passion. The theology of the Gospel and first Epistle, 
so far from being borrowed from Philo, is repugnant to 
his essential doctrine and to the heretical scheme based 
on it. Finally, even the phraseology of John can be 
accounted for by supposing it drawn mainly, and per- 
haps exclusively, from the Old Testament. The pro- 
logue makes it evident that he had in mind the narrative 
of the creation by the word of God, in Genesis. The 
" word " of God is said in the Old Testament to have 
come to the prophets, revealing his attributes and will. 1 
In the Psalms and in Isaiah the " word " is personified, 
and divine attributes and works are attributed to it. 2 
From these sources the evangelist may have taken up 
the term which struck him as most fit to designate the 
personal Revealer of God, whose incarnation, and life 

1 Isa. i. 4-11, cf. Isa. ii. 3. 

2 Ps. xxxiii. 6, cvii. 20, cxlvii. 15 ; Isa. lv. 10 seq. 



24(T THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

in the flesh, he was about to describe. Whether the 
choice of this term by the author of the Gospel is to be 
accounted for wholly in this way, from its Old-Testa- 
ment use, as Weiss thinks, or whether discussions about 
the Logos, which were fomented by Alexandrian specu- 
lation, may have likewise influenced him in his selec- 
tion of phraseology, are questions into which we do not 
here enter. At all events, the term " Logos " was found 
by him to be a proper vehicle for expressing that idea 
of Christ which his own testimony, and the impression 
made by his life, had stamped upon the disciple's mind. 
Could it be proved that the source of this term was 
Alexandrian, the apostle's definition of it was none the 
less a reversal or rectification of the Alexandrian idea 
connected with it. 1 Philo's philosophy, it should not 
be forgotten, was not all his own creation. It had its 
roots in prior, widely-diffused Judaic speculation. In 
the reports of the teaching of Christ in the fourth 

1 Dr. E. A. Abbot (in tbe art. Gospels, Enc. Brit., vol. x.) traces 
various passages in John to Philo. But why go so far, when the Old 
Testament furnishes abundant materials suggestive of the imagery 
which is contained in every passage which Dr. Abbot refers to ? The 
evangelist's account of the visit of the Samaritan woman to the well 
(chap, iv.) is said to remind us of Philo's contrast between Hagar at 
the well and Rebekah (Posterity of Cain, xli.). \Vhy r then, does the 
evangelist make the woman carry a pitcher, like Rebekah, while in 
Philo one point of the contrast is that she carries a " leathern bag" ? 
The reader who will consult an English concordance under the words 
" well," " wells," "water," "waters," "living water," "fountain," 
"fountains," "drink," will see how much closer the parallels are 
between John iv. and the Old Testament than between that chapter 
and Philo. For example, for " wells of salvation, " see Isa. xii. 3; com- 
pare Prov. x. 11, xvi. 22, xviii. 4. For "fountain of living water," see 
Jer. ii. 13 ; compare Isa. lviii. 11, Jer. xvii. 13; Cant. iv. 15. See also 
Rev. xxi. 6, which will not be attributed to Philo. " Ye drink ; but ye 
are not rilled with drink" (Hag. i. 6). As for the figurative use of 
"bread," the suggestions in the Old Testament are numerous. For 
the expression " bread of heaven," see Ps. cv. 40 ; compare Ps. lxxviii. 
20, 15, 10. 



APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 241 

Gospel the term " Logos " nowhere appears. It is clear 
that the author merely sums up in the prologue, in 
language of his own, the instruction which Christ had 
given concerning himself. 

The author of the Gospel was a Jew and a Palestin- 
ian. The strong Hebraic coloring of his style is 
acknowledged by Keim, 1 as well as affirmed by Ewald. 2 
The principal conceptions, as "life," "light," "truth," 
are drawn from the circle of Old-Testament thought. 
The authority of the Old Testament, the inspiration of 
Moses and the prophets, are assumed. 3 With the char- 
acteristic ^ elements of the Messianic expectation the 
author is familiar. The same is true of Jewish opin- 
ions and customs generally ; for example, the usages 
connected with marriage and with the burial of the 
dead. Witness his acquaintance with the prejudice 
against conversing with women (iv. 27), with the 
mutual hatred of Jews and Samaritans (iv. 9), with 
the opinion that deformity or suffering implies sin 
(ix. 2). He is intimately conversant with Jewish 
observances, as is seen in what he says of the "last day 
of the feast" (vii. 37), — the day added to the original 
seven, — the wedding at Cana, the burial of Lazarus. 4 
The allusions to the geography of the Holy Land are 
those of one personally conversant with the places. 
He knows how to distinguish Cana of Galilee from 
another place, of more consequence-, of the same name 
(ii. 11). Of the Sea of Galilee, the passage across, and 
the paths on its shores, he has an accurate recollection. 
Respecting the topography at the opening of chap, iv., 

1 Gesch. Jesu, i. 116. 2 Johanu. Schriften, i. 44 seq. 

8 i. 45, iri. 14, v. 46, vi. 32, vii. 38, viii. 56, x. 35, xii. 14 seq., 37 seq., 
xv. 25, xix. 23 seq., 28, 35, 36, 37, xx. 31. 

4 Of. Westcott, Comm. on St. John's Gospel, p. vi. 



242 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

Renan remarks that it could emanate only from one who 
had often passed into the Valley of Sychem. 1 He has 
in his mind the image of the Pavement, or platform on 
which Pilate's chair was placed, with its Hebrew name, 
Gabbatha (xix. 13). 

We have now to consider the relation of the fourth 
Gospel to the other three. Here the same phenomena 
which persuade some that the fourth Gospel is spurious 
convince others that it is genuine. The longer ministry 
of Jesus, — extending to at least two years and a half, and 
probably to three years and a half, — and his extended 
labors in Judaea, are obvious peculiarities of the fourth 
evangelist. But his representation of the life and min- 
istry of Christ, although independent, is not contra- 
dictory to that of the synoptists. The " country " of 
Jesus, it is to be observed, is still Galilee ; for this is 
the right interpretation of John iv. 44. Luke, in the 
long passage relating to the last journey of Jesus to 
Jerusalem (ix. 51-xviii. 14), brings together matter, a 
portion of which appears to belong in connection with 
the ministry in Judaea. Independently of such parti- 
culars as the relation of Christ to the family of Alary 
and Martha, the lament of Jesus over Jerusalem (Luke 
xiii. 34 seq. ; Matt, xxiii. 37 seq.) admits of no tolera- 
ble explanation, except on the supposition that he had 
frequently taught there. " How often " must have 
meant more than the efforts of a few days. The apos- 
trophe plainly refers to the city, not to the Jewish people 
as a whole, to whom Baur would arbitrarily apply it. 
In Luke, the verse immediately before reads, " For it 
cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.''' ' 2 

i Vie de Jesus (13th ed.), p. 493. 

2 For Strauss's abortive attempt to escape from the only rational 
interpretation of the Saviour's lament, see The Supernatural Origin of 
Christianity, p. 100 seq. 



APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 243 

This passage establishes on the authority of the synop- 
tists, beyond the reack of doubt or cavil, the longer 
Judean ministry of Jesus, and thus confirms the testi- 
mony of the fourth Gospel in this essential particular. 
Luke (vi. 1) distinctly implies the intervention of at 
least one passover between the beginning and the close 
of his public life. Who can avoid seeing that the pro- 
found impression made by Jesus is far better accounted 
for if we accept the chronology of the fourth Gospel 
than if we conceive his ministry limited to about a 
twelvemonth? The truth appears to be, that in the 
early oral narration of the life and teaching of Christ, 
perhaps for the reason that his labors in Jerusalem and 
the neighborhood were more familiar to the Christians 
there, the Galilean ministry was chiefly described. 
The matter was massed under the three general heads 
of his baptism, and intercourse with John the Baptist, 
his work in Galilee, and the visit to Jerusalem at the 
passover, when he was crucified. If the author of the 
fourth Gospel was a non-apostolic writer of the second 
century, no satisfactory reason can be conjectured for 
his deliberate departure from the apparent chronology 
of the received authorities. He might easily have 
brought Jesus into conflict with Pharisees more fre- 
quently elsewhere than in Judaea. He might have 
invented visits intermediate between the two passovers. 
If, as is alleged, he was of an anti-Judaic spirit, why 
should he thus cling to the passovers ? Why should 
he present a chronological scheme which could only 
tend to provoke suspicion, and expose him to contradic- 
tion and detection ? The writer', whoever he was, was 
evidently acquainted with one, if not all, of the earlier 
Gospels. 1 Why did he not set his new portrait into the 

i See John iii. 24. 



244 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

old frame ? The most reasonable hypothesis certainly 
is, that he was conversant with the facts, and was 
possessed of a conscious and acknowledged authority 
which excluded from his mind all fear of contradiction. 

The alleged discrepancy between the fourth Gospel 
and the synoptists, respecting the day of the month 
when Christ was crucified, has been urged as an argu- 
ment, both by those who advocate, and those who oppose, 
the Johannine authorship. Was that Friday the 14th, 
or the 15th, of Nisan ? And was the Last Supper at 
the usual time of the passover meal, or on the evening 
before ? It is held by many scholars that there is here 
a discrepancy between the fourth evangelist and the 
other Gospels ; that he, unlike them, makes the Last 
Supper to have occurred on the evening before the day 
on which the passover lamb was killed and eaten, 
and the crucifixion on the morning following. Bleek, 
Neander, Weiss, and numerous others, admitting the 
discrepancjr, bring forward considerations to prove the 
superior accuracy of the fourth Gospel in this particu- 
lar, some of which are drawn from incidental observa- 
tions in the synoptists themselves. The Tubingen school 
insisted on the opposite inference. They have con- 
tended that the author of the fourth Gospel purposely 
misdated these events in order to make the crucifixion 
synchronize with the slaying of the paschal lamb, his 
intent being to convey the idea that the passover is sup- 
planted by the offering of Christ, " the Lamb of God." 

The renewed examination of the Gospels has led me 
more and more to doubt whether the fourth evangelist 
really differs from the synoptists as they are ordinarily 
understood. 1 I cannot but think that the more con- 

1 That John is in harmony with the synoptists on this point has been 
maintained by Dr. E. Robinson, Wieseler, Tholuck, Norton, and others; 



APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 245 

servative critics, as Meyer, "Weiss, Westcott, Ellicott, 
have asserted with an unwarranted degree of confidence 
the interpretation of John which places the Last Supper 
on the day prior to that of the paschal meal. It is still 
a very doubtful question of exegesis. On the supposi- 
tion, however, that the discrepancy really exists, there 
is no just ground for the conclusion unfavorable to the 
accuracy of the fourth Gospel. The motive assigned 
by the Tubingen school for the alleged falsification of 
the date is totally insufficient. In the first place, if the 
author of the Gospel had wished to represent Christ 
as the antitype of the paschal lamb, he had no need to 
alter the chronology for this end. Christ is termed by 
Paul " our passover " (1 Cor. v. 7). In the second place, 
it is not certain even that the evangelist designs thus 
to represent Christ. It is quite as likely that the appel- 
lation " Lamb of God " was taken from Isa. liii. 7 as 
from Exod. xxix. 38 seq. It is more probable that the 
passage quoted by the evangelist, "A bone of him shall 
not be broken " (xix. 36), was taken from Ps. xxxiv. 20 
than from the law relative to the paschal offering 
(Exod. xii. 46, Num. ix. 12). 1 On any reasonable view 
of the case, had the evangelist thought that the minute 
identification of Jesus with the paschal lamb was of so 
vital consequence that he must needs run the risk of 
devising a false chronology in contradiction to the 
received Gospels, he would surely have made the par- 
allelism much more obvious. He would have gone 
farther than merely to insinuate it. How could he have 
considered it essential that Christ, as the antitype of 

also, more recently, by Keil, Comm. u. das Evangel, d. Matt., pp. 513- 
5:28; Luthardt, Comm. u. das Evangel. Johann.; McLellan, The New- 
Testament, etc., vol. i. pp. 473-494. 

1 See Hutton's thoughtful essay on John's Gospel (Essays, vol. i. 
p. 195). 



246 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

the passover lamb, should die on the 14th of Nisan, 
when, according to the theory of the Tubingen critics, 
it was known to him that he did not ? 

The Quartodeciman observance in Asia Minor is a 
topic closely connected with the foregoing. That was 
on the 14th of Nisan. But what did it commemorate? 
Many scholars have thought that it was the crucifixion 
of Jesus. If this be so, it is a direct argument for the 
interpretation of the fourth Gospel, which would make 
the crucifixion on the morning of the day when the 
lamb was killed and eaten, and at the same time con- 
firms the evangelist's accuracy on this point. But, 
since the able essay of Schurer, his opinion, which corre- 
sponds with that formerly defended by Bleek and Giese- 
ler, has gained ground, that the Quartodeciman Supper 
on the evening of the 14th of Nisan was primarily the 
Jewish passover, kept at the usual time, but trans- 
formed into a Christian festival. John found the festi- 
val in being when he came to Asia Minor, and may well 
have left it to stand, "whether he regarded the 13th or 
the 14th as the day of the Last Supper." 1 It is certain 
that the defenders of the Quartodeciman practice in 
Asia found nothing in the fourth Gospel to clash with 
their views. Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus towards the 
end of the second century, pointed back to the example 
of John "who leaned on the bosom of the Saviour." 
It appears quite astonishing that a Gospel should have 
been forged in opposition to the tenet of the Quarto- 
decimans, but treating the matter so obscurely that 
their leaders failed to discover in it any condemnation 

1 Zeitschr. fur List. Tlieol., 1870, pp. 182-284. For an exposition of 
the view of Weitzel and Steitz, that the Quartodecimans commemorated 
the crucifixion, see The Supernatural Origin of Christianity (3d ed.), 
p. 584 seq. 



APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 247 

of their custom. It is not agreed what precise position 
on the paschal controversy was taken by Apollinaris, 
bishop of Hierapolis, the successor, and it may be the 
next successor, of Papias, in the second century. But 
this is known, that he recognized the fourtli Gospel, and 
made his appeal to it. We may dismiss the Quarto- 
deciman discussion as affording, even in the view of 
such opponents of the genuineness of the fourth Gos- 
pel as Schurer, no argument in favor of their opinion 
on this subject. 

Were there space to compare various features in 
the history which are common to the synoptists and 
the fourth Gospel, we should find the statements of the 
latter worthy of credit. If we are obliged to choose 
between the first and the last passover as the probable 
date of the driving of the money-changers from the 
temple, the probability is decidedly in favor of the date 
assigned by the fourth evangelist. Then John the 
Baptist was fresh in the recollection of the people. 
As another example, may be mentioned the account 
given in John of the temporary connection of several of 
the disciples of Jesus with him immediately after his 
baptism, — a circumstance which explains, what would 
otherwise be difficult to understand, their instant obe- 
dience to his call to forsake their occupations, and enter 
into a permanent connection with him. 

The next topic to be considered is the discourses 
of Christ as given in the fourth Gospel, considered in 
themselves and in relation to the reports of his teach- 
ing by the synoptists. The ordinary effect of oral 
repetition is to single out the salient points of a narra- 
tive, to sift it of a portion of its details, and to preserve 
or impart a certain terseness and home-bred vigor to 
the diction. These traits frequently appear in the first 



248 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

three Gospels. The fourth Gospel is made up of per- 
sonal recollections, in a style marked by the individu- 
ality of the author, and charged throughout with 
emotion. The discourses are in the same style of ex- 
pression as the narrative portions of the Gospel and as 
the first Epistle. No doubt it must be assumed that 
the teaching of Jesus was heard, assimilated, and re- 
produced mainly in the author's own phraseology. 
This supposition is perfectly consistent with the essen- 
tial faithfulness of his recollection. Let an ardent and 
sympathetic pupil listen to a public discourse of a 
teacher. Suppose him to undertake afterwards to relate 
in a condensed way what was said, for the information 
of another. It will be natural for him to cast what he 
will convey to his auditor, in part and perhaps alto- 
gether, in his own phraseology, and even, almost un- 
consciously, to mingle an explanatory element to aid 
the comprehension of the listener. It is the teacher 
who forms the pupil. The essential conceptions of the 
teacher become, so to speak, the staple of his habitual 
thoughts. The ideas and the spirit of the instructor 
are more effectually, they are, it might be added, more 
truly, transmitted by this method to other minds than 
might otherwise be possible, unless, perchance, a verba- 
tim report of his discourses could be presented. It is 
one proof of the genuineness of the Gospel, and of the 
essential correctness of the relation given of the dis- 
courses, that the author is so filled with the spirit of 
his Master's teaching, so absorbed in the substance 
of it, that here and there he insensibly passes from 
the Master's words into reflections of his own, without 
distinctly marking the point of transition. Incidentally 
there occur undesigned tokens of the fidelity of the 
evangelist's memory. One of the most striking in- 



APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 249 

stances is the introduction of the words, "Arise, let us 
go hence " (John xiv. 31), which are not explained, but 
which imply a change of place, — perhaps a leaving of 
the table to go forth towards the garden. Had they 
formed a part of a fictitious narrative, it is impossible 
to suppose that they would not have been connected 
with a statement of what the action was that is implied 
in them. 

Who can doubt that Jesus said much more, and, 
especially in converse with his disciples, spoke in more 
continuous discourse, than the synoptists relate ? They 
preserve, for example, but a few sentences which were 
uttered on the occasion of the Last Supper. Yet he 
sat with the disciples the greater part of the night. 
Here, again, the peculiarity of the oral tradition, in 
contrast with the full narrative of a person who draws 
from the store of his own recollections, is manifest. 
As regards the Saviour's manner of teaching, there are 
striking resemblances between the discourses in John 
and his method of instruction as described in the synop- 
tical Gospels. It is said that in John he makes use 
of symbols, as in the connecting of physical blindness 
with spiritual (ix. 39-41). But how does this differ 
from such a saying as, " Let the dead bury their dead"? 
(Matt. viii. 22.) It is said that in John his figures are 
frequently misunderstood by his disciples. But in the 
synoptists we have such statements as, " Beware of the 
leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees " (Matt. xvi. 11), 
which the disciples failed to comprehend ; and, " He 
that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy 
one " (Luke xxii. 36), which the disciples misunder- 
stood, and which Jesus did not stop to explain. Such 
an illustration as that of the good shepherd (chap, x..) 
belongs to the same method of- teaching which dictated 



250 THE GROUNDS OF TIIEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

the parables recorded in the first three Gospels. The 
close examination of the two authorities, John and the 
synoptists, brings to light numerous resemblances in 
the modes in which the religious thoughts of Christ 
are set forth, such as might not attract the attention of 
a cursory reader. 1 

As regards theology, there are traces in the synop- 
tists of the same vein of teaching which is so prominent 
in the fourth Gospel. The memorable passage in Matt. 
xi. 27, "No man knoweth the Son but the Father, 

1 On this topic, see Luthardt, Der Joliann. Ursprung, etc., p. 185 seq., 
or Godet, Comm., etc., p. 189 seq.; also Westcott, Comm. on St. John's 
Gospel (Am. ed.), p. lxxxii. seq. Among the passages are John ii. 19, 
" Destroy this temple," etc. (Matt. xxvi. 61, xxvii. 40; Mark xiv. 58, xv. 
29), John iv. 44, " A prophet hath no honor," etc. (Matt. xiii. 57; Mark 
vi. 4; Luke iv. 24), John v. 8, " Rise, take up thy hed," etc. (Matt. ix. 
5 seq.; Mark ii. 9; Luke v. 24), John vi. 20 (Matt. xiv. 27; Mark vi. 50), 
John vi. 35 (Matt. v. 6; Luke vi. 21), John vi. 4G (Matt. xi. 27; Luke x. 
21 seq.), John xii. 7 (Matt. xxvi. 12; Mark xiv. 8), John xii. 8 (Matt, 
xxvi. 11; Mark xiv. 7), John xii. 25, "He that loveth his life," etc. 
(Matt. x. 39, xvi. 25; Mark viii. 35; Luke ix. 24), John xii. 27, "Now is 
my soul troubled" (Matt. xxvi. 28; Mark xiv. 34 seq.), John xiii. 3, 
" knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands " (Matt. 
xi. 27; Luke x. 21 seq.), John xiii. 1G (Matt. x. 24; Luke vi. 40), John 
xiii. 20 (Matt. x. 40; Luke x. 1G), John xiii. 21 (Matt. xxvi. 21; Mark 
xiv. 18), John xiii. 38 (Matt. xxvi. 34; Mark xiv. 30; Luke xxii. 34), 
John xiv. 18 (Matt, xxviii. 20), John xv. 20 (Matt. x. 25), John xv. 21 
(Matt. x. 22;, John xvi. 32 (Matt. xxvi. 31; Mark xiv. 27), John xvii. 2 
(Matt, xxviii. 18), John xviii. 11 (Matt. xxvi. 39, 52; Mark xiv. 36; Lake 
xxii. 42), John xviii. 20 (Matt. xxvi. 55), John xviii. 33 (Matt, xxvii. 11), 
John xx. 23 (Matt. xvi. 19 and xviii. 18). The terms " life " and " eternal 
life " are found in Matthew, and are even interchanged with " kingdom 
of heaven." Compare Matt, xviii. 3 with ver. 8; xix. 17 with ver. 23; 
xxv. 34 with ver. 4G; ix. 45 with ver. 47. These resemblances to the 
synoptists are wholly inartificial. Professor Holtzinaun's attempt to 
show that words and phrases are culled from the synoptists by the 
author of the fourth Gospel, and put together in a kind of mosaic, is 
a failure. The inference finds no warrant in the data brought forward 
to sustain it. The fourth Gospel is as far as possible from being a 
mechanical composite of scraps of phraseology gathered from other 
sources. It has a homogeneousness, a continuity, a life, which never 
could have belonged to it had it been composed in the artificial way 
supposed. 



APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 251 

neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son and 
he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him," is in content 
and style coincident with what we find in John. It is 
a specimen of that sort of teaching respecting himself 
and his relation to God, which we have good reason to 
expect that Christ would impart to his followers. Is 
it probable that he would have left them in the dark 
on those questions in regard to which they must inev- 
itably have craved instruction, and which form so large 
a portion of the teaching in John ? The institution of 
the Lord's Supper as it is recorded by the synoptists 
implies that instruction respecting his person and con- 
cerning the spiritual reception of himself, such teach- 
ing as is given in John vi., had been imparted to his 
disciples. Else how could his words at the Last Sup- 
per have been otherwise than strange and unintelligible 
to them ? The conception of his person in the synop- 
tical Gospels is at bottom the same as in the fourth. 
In them he stands forth as the supreme lawgiver, as we 
see in the Sermon on the Mount. He is distinguished 
from the prophets, and is exalted above them. He is 
at last to judge the world. The particular point that 
is found in John, in distinction from the other Gospels, 
is the explicit doctrine of his pre-existence. This doc- 
trine, together with that of his relation to the creation, 
has its equivalent in the writings of the Apostle Paul 
(1 Cor. viii. 6 ; 2 Cor. viii. 9 ; Phil. ii. 6), — a circum- 
stance, as was remarked above, which tends strongly 
to prove that it entered into the testimony of Jesus 
respecting himself, and thus goes to corroborate the 
evidence of the same fact afforded in John. 

In the Christian literature of the second century, 
there is no book which approaches in power the fourth 
Gospel. Every thing is on a lower level. When we 



252 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

take up the works of the sub-apostolic age, we are con- 
scious of an abrupt descent from the high plane of the 
apostolic writings. The apostolic Fathers are marked 
by a languor which infuses languor into the reader. 
Even the Epistle of Polycarp, although not wanting in 
good sense and good feeling, is not an exception. The 
Epistle of Clement of Rome, compared with the New- 
Testament writers, is feeble. Unless for the purpose of 
scholarly investigation, who cares to peruse the allego- 
ries of Hermas ? The anonymous Epistle to Diognetus, 
which is generally thought to be as early as A.D. 150, 
stands alone in that era as a really spirited compo- 
sition. This is a discourse or terse appeal addressed 
to an individual; but, notwithstanding its rhetorical 
vigor, it cannot be compared for a moment in- religious 
depth with the fourth Gospel. The writings of that 
day, Justin included, are echoes of the inspired works 
of the preceding age. How can a book of the transcend- 
ent power of this Gospel be referred to the period of 
decadence ? It has commanded the reverent sympathy 
of the ablest minds. It has captivated millions of 
hearts, and has held its throne, age after age, in the 
households of the Christian nations, amid all the fluc- 
tuations of culture and civilization. To think that such 
a writer — an unknown writer too — sprang up, like a 
flower of perennial beauty, in the barren waste of post- 
apostolic authorship, is to suppose an anachronism. 

Strongly marked as is the type of doctrine in the 
writings of John, its identity in essential features with 
the theology of Paul is an impressive fact. John 
teaches that " life " begins here, in the knowledge of 
God and of his Son (John iii. 36 ; 1 John v. 12). Life 
inseparable from fellowship with Christ is the truth on 
which all stress is laid. Judgment is here : the Gospel 



APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 253 

does its own work of separation by testing and reveal- 
ing the affinities of the heart ; yet the objective, atoning 
work of Christ is not ignored, nor is the resurrection 
and the final awards (John iii. 14, 15, v. 28, 29 ; 1 John i. 
7, ii. 2). Paul connects the breaking-down of the wall 
of separation between Jew and Gentile with the death 
of Christ (Gal. iii. 13, 14). In remarkable harmony 
with this conception are the words of Jesus when it 
was told him (John xii. 20 seq.) that Greeks who had 
come up to the passover desired to see him. It was a 
sign to him that his hour had come. The corn of wheat 
in order not to " abide alone," but that it might bear 
fruit, must " fall into the ground, and die." 

If the fourth Gospel is a fiction, what account can 
be given of the motives and aims of the author? The 
only theory on this subject which is entitled to notice 
is that of Baur. He supposes the author to have been 
a Gnostic, having a certain idea of the Logos, believ- 
ing in the identity of the historic Jesus with the Logos, 
and undertaking to exhibit this identity in a fictitious 
narrative of a symbolic character. The book is written, 
then, with a definite purpose. The historic material, 
which is mainly imaginary, is simply the vehicle for 
conveying the author's speculation or intuition of the 
divine Logos. The distinction between " light " and 
"darkness," it is affirmed, is an absolute metaphysical 
antagonism. The principle of darkness is embodied 
in the Jews ; and the development of their unbelief 
is carried through successive stages corresponding to 
the increasing manifestation of Christ, or the Logos, 
which provokes it. Outward events, especially mira- 
cles, are merely a sensuous counterpart of "the idea," 
— a kind of staging, put up to be pulled down again. 
One aim, we are told, is to exhibit the nullity of a faith 



254 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

which rests on miracles. They are not only a cratch 
to be thrown away : they are a crutch fabricated by 
fancy. 

On this theory, what notion shall we have of the 
mental state of the author? We are assured that he 
is a very earnest man ; that he identifies himself with 
John in spirit and feeling ; that he writes as he feels 
that John would if he were alive. He is immersed and 
lost in a series of imaginative intuitions and pictures 
(Ans chaining en und Bilder) of the grandest and most 
significant character. In the course of his work on 
this Gospel, Baur not unfrequently intimates that the 
author hardly distinguished fiction from fact in his own 
mind. He lost himself, as it were, in the symbols of 
his own creation. The artistic product assumed the 
character of reality, so closely related was it to the idea 
which it embodied. Fancy that Bunyan was so carried 
out of himself in his portraiture of the Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress, that the outward narrative almost seemed to his 
own mind to be literal history, so fitly did it embody 
the course of feeling symbolized in it. Something like 
this state of consciousness is attributed by Baur to the 
author of the fourth Gospel. Except on some such 
theory as this, the work — supposing it not to be genu- 
ine — must be considered a product of base and vulgar 
imposture. 

Now, the whole scheme of Baur respecting this Gos- 
pel is built up on a false assumption as to the author's 
point of view. It is assumed that the incarnation is to 
him a circumstance of no account. It is even assumed, 
on the basis of erroneous interpretation, that no real 
incarnation is taught in the Gospel, but rather a Do- 
cetic junction of the Logos with the man Jesus; 
whereas it is on the incarnation as a most real and 



APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP. OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 255 

momentous fact that the writer's- thoughts are fixed. 
He does not spin the history of Jesus out of the idea : 
he deduces the idea from the history. In the forefront 
of the book, as the climax of the prologue, stands the 
joyous declaration, " The Word became flesh." To help 
out his view, Baur makes verses 9-14 of the first chap- 
ter refer to the pre-existent Word. But they plainly 
relate to the Word incarnate. Baur's interpretation 
is an example of the artificial exegesis — of which far 
more signal specimens might be adduced — by which 
alone his thesis can be sustained. Not that he is in- 
sincere, or lacking in ingenuity. His treatise on this 
Gospel is in many respects a work of great ability, but 
it is a remarkable illustration of the power of a precon- 
ceived theory to pervert the judgment of a skilful in- 
terpreter. What candid reader of the Gospel can fail 
to perceive that it is the historic Jesus, as he had actu- 
ally lived, taught, consorted with his disciples, hung 
upon the cross, and risen from the tomb, in whom the 
author's interest centres ? Here all his beliefs respect- 
ing Christ take their rise. 

That the apostle teaches dualism is a groundless alle- 
gation. The contrast between light and darkness is 
represented as moral, as having its roots in the will 
(John iii. 19-21 ; cf. viii. 47 with viii. 34, and xii. 35, 
36, with xii. 43). Where is there room for dualism 
when " all things were made by " the Word ? (John 
i. 3.) How can the Jews be thought of, as, metaphysi- 
cally speaking, of the realm of darkness, when it is said 
of Christ in relation to them that "he came unto his 
own " ? 

It is manifest that John has a certain conception of 
Jesus, and announces it at the outset of his narrative. 
The same is true of Matthew, who will show, partly by 



256 THE GROUNDS OF TIIEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

a comparison of facts with prophecy, that Jesus is the 
Messiah. The only question is, Whence was that con- 
ception derived? Was it excogitated in the writer's 
own brain ? Was it a dogma acquired by speculation ? 
Or did it arise from the impression made on the mind 
of the writer by Jesus himself and by his testimony 
respecting his relation to God ? A man, let it be sup- 
posed, proposes to depict the life of Washington. He 
may have an enthusiastic conviction that his hero was 
the noblest of patriots. He may so express himself at 
the beginning of his book. But if he derived his per- 
suasion from what he saw and knew of Washington's 
career, and if he sustains his view by presenting a rec- 
ord of facts within the limits of his personal knowledge, 
surely his procedure is legitimate. The credibility of 
his narrative is not in the least diminished. Is it a con- 
dition of trustworthiness that a historian should be an 
uninterested chronicler? The main thread in John's 
narrative is one that belongs to the facts as they oc- 
curred. Did not the unbelief and malignity of the Jews 
actually grow, as Jesus more and more revealed him- 
self to them, and disclosed the nature of his kingdom ? 
Why, then, should not John, casting his eye back on 
the course of events, see them in their real nexus, and 
shape his narrative accordingly ? 

If it could be made to appear that the various parts 
of the narrative are artificial, or contrary to probability, 
the conclusion of Baur might be warranted. But the 
interpretations by which this is sought to be done are 
themselves artificial, and forced upon the text. What, 
for example, can be more groundless than the assertion 
made by so many critics, from Baur to Keim, that, ac- 
cording to this Gospel, Jesus was not baptized ? What 
fair-minded reader, with John i. 32, 33, before him. 



APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 257 

would ever Lave attributed such an intent to the evan- 
gelist? How, it might be added, could the author, 
whoever he was, expect to dislodge from the belief of 
Christians a fact like this, ingrained as it was in the 
Gospel tradition? If he were foolish enough to under- 
take such a feat, how could he hope to effect his end by 
merely omitting expressly to record the circumstance ? 
It is one of the fancies of the Tubingen critics that 
Nicodemus is invented as a type of unbelieving, sign- 
seeking Judaism. Why, then, should he be depicted as 
attaining more and more faith ? (iii. 2, vii. 50, xix. 39.) 
The Samaritan woman, on the contrary, is said to be a 
type of the believing heathen. Why was not an actual 
heathen chosen to figure in this character, rather than a 
Samaritan who believed in Moses, and was looking for 
the Messiah? But into the details of exegesis it is 
impracticable here to enter. 1 

It is a strange error into which the critics fall who 
have said that the author of this Gospel attaches no 
value to miracles, setting them up, so to speak, merely 
to bowl them down. It is true, that, as he looks back 
upon the Saviour's life, every thing in it is seen to be 
a manifestation of the glory that was veiled in the ser- 
vant's form. The nature of the only-begotten Son shone 
out in supernatural exertions of power and mercy. 
That which is censured in the Gospel is the disposition 
to rest in the miracles as bare facts which minister to 
wonder, or supply some lower want, instead of catching 
their suggestion. Unbelief, even when not denying 
that they were wrought, failed to look through them. 



1 For a particular examination of Baur's exegesis of the Gospel, see 
Beyschlag (ul supra), also Bruckner's notes to De Wette's Kurze Erlcl. 
d. Evany. Johann., and The Supernatural Origin of Christianity (3ded.), 
p. 131! seq. 



258 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

They were a language the deep import of which was 
not comprehended. They were opaque facts. Hence 
the Jews called for more and more. They clamored 
for something more stupendous, — for a " sign from 
heaven." 

This is the view of miracles which is found in the 
fourth Gospel. There is not the remotest suggestion 
that they are not actual occurrences. The narrator 
does not stultify himself in this manner. In every in- 
stance where Baur appeals to exegesis in support of 
his view of the evangelist's intent in this matter, he is 
obliged to do violence to the passage in hand. For 
example, when Jesus said, " Blessed are they that have 
not seen, and yet have believed," there is, to be sure, a 
reference to the reluctance of Thomas to believe with- 
out seeing ; but to believe what ? Why, the miracle of 
the resurrection to which the other apostles had testified. 
This was the object of faith. It is not on faith inde- 
pendent of miracles, but on faith independent of the 
ocular perception of miracles, that Jesus pronounces 
his blessing. 

Scattered over the pages of the fourth Gospel are 
numerous indirect proofs that the author draws his 
material from personal recollection. Only a few illus- 
trations can be here presented. "And it was at Jeru- 
salem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. 
And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch " 
(John x. 22, 23). Why should it be mentioned that 
Jesus was in this porch? Nothing in the teaching 
recorded in the context called for it. How can it be 
accounted for, except on the supposition that the scene 
was printed on the author's memor}^ ? Stating this fact, 
he must needs explain to heathen readers why Jesus 
walked in this sheltered place. " It was winter : " the 



APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 259 

festival occurred in December. A similar instance of 
obvious recollection is John viii. 20. The iron boxes 
constituting the " treasury " the author had seen. The 
image of Jesus as he stood near them was present in 
his recollection. Why should he refer to " .^Enon," 
where John was baptizing, as " near to Salim ? " (iii. 23.) 
Why should he describe the pool at Jerusalem as being 
by the sheep-gate, as called in Hebrew "Bethesda," 
as having five porches ? (v. 2.) Why should he inter- 
rupt his narrative (viii. 1) with the statement that 
" Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives, and early in the 
morning he came again into the temple," a bare chrono- 
logical fact with nothing to hang upon it ? What else 
can it be but an accurate reminiscence ? Other chrono- 
logical statements, extending not only to the day, but 
to the hour, are frequent. They come in, not as, if they 
had been sought, but as a component part of the au- 
thor's recollection (ii. 12). For what reason is Philip 
designated (xii. 21) as " of Bethsaida of Galilee," the 
incident here recorded not requiring any such particu- 
larity of description ? What reason is there for adding, 
to the statement that Pilate sat down in his judgment- 
seat, that the place " is called the Pavement, but in the 
Hebrew, Gabbatha " ? What can this be but an instance 
of precise description such as is natural in referring to 
a spot where one has witnessed a memorable event ? 

If the fourth Gospel was not written by John, it is 
the product of pious fraud. Among the Jews, in the 
later period of their history, prior 'to the time of Jesus, 
many pseudonymous works were composed. This took 
place chiefly among the Alexandrians, but was not con- 
fined to them. Conscious that the age of inspiration 
had gone by, authors felt prompted to set forth, under 
the name of Enoch, Solomon, or some other worthy; 



2G0 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

the lessons which they thought suited to the time. 
They aspired to enter into the mind, and speak in the 
spirit, of the prophet or sage whom they personated. 
In this literary device there was often no deliberate 
purpose to deceive. It early led, however, to inten- 
tioaal fraud. This practice passed over into certain 
Christian circles where Judaic and Judaizing influences 
prevailed. The distinction between esoteric and exo- 
teric doctrine, which may be traced to the Alexandrian 
philosophy, availed as a partial excuse for it. Writ- 
ings were fabricated like the Sibylline Oracles and the 
Pseudo-Clementine Homilies. But pious frauds of this 
nature, as every one feels, are repugnant to the sense of 
truth which Christianity demands and fosters. Chris- 
tianity brought in a purer standard. In the ancient 
church, as now, books of this sort were earnestly con- 
demned by enlightened Christians. Tertullian informs 
us, that the presbyter who was convicted of writing, 
in the name of Paul, the Acta Pauli et Theclce, confessed 
his offence, and was deposed from his office. 1 This 
incident shows what must have been the feeling enter- 
tained by Christians generally in regard to this species 
of benevolent imposture. The reader can judge for 
himself as to the moral tone of the Gospel and Epistle 
which we are considering. Did the author, as regards 
sound ethical feeling, stand on the low plane of the 
manufacturers of spurious books? Would such a man 
fabricate, in the name of an apostle, a fictitious history 
of the Lord? Such 'a work, let it be noticed, is of 
an utterly diverse character from a merely didactic 
writing. Doubts have been entertained, both in 
ancient and modern times, of the genuineness of the 
second Epistle 'of Peter. But if we can conceive of a 

1 De Baptismo, 15. 



APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 261 

well-meaning Christian, with a conscience imperfectly 
trained, undertaking to compose a homily under the 
name of an apostle, it is still something utterly different 
from the attempt to traverse the ground, which to him 
must have been sacred ground, that was already covered 
by the authentic Gospels. The irreverence, the auda- 
city, of such a procedure, far outstrips any examples 
furnished by the Gospels known to be apocryphal, 
which mainly confine themselves to the infancy of 
Jesus, and to the Virgin Mary. Baur, in defending 
his position, actually compares the author of this Gospel 
to the Apostle Paul. Paul, he reminds us, was not one 
of the twelve. Why should there not be still another 
apostle? Think of the Apostle Paul sitting down to 
invent a fictitious history of the Lord Jesus Christ ! 
And yet the author of the fourth Gospel is put by 
Baur on a level, as regards moral and spiritual worth, 
with the Apostle Paul. 

Those who deny that John wrote the fourth Gospel 
hold that its author was a man of genius. The power 
exerted b}^ his writing, in his own time and subse- 
quently, is of itself a sufficient proof of his surpassing 
ability. Who was this anonymous leader of opinion? 
Why should a man of this exalted capacity wish to 
wear a mask? Why not, like others, propagate his 
ideas in the light of day and in the open field? How 
did lie succeed in hiding himself in obscurity? Why 
have we no other great works from his pen ? Why does 
not his name figure among the noted religious leaders 
of his time ? 

There are some other traits of the fourth Gospel 
which are adapted to impress the candid reader with 
the conviction that it is the Apostle John who writes 
it. 



262 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

1. The peculiar mode in which the authorship is in- 
dicated. There is one prominent disciple whose name 
is not given. He is referred to by a circumlocution. 
At the Last Supper there leaned on the bosom of Jesus 
"one of his disciples whom Jesus loved" (xiii. 23). 
To him, described in the same terms, Jesus commits 
his mother (xix. 26). He accompanies Peter to the 
tomb of Jesus — " the other disciple whom Jesus 
loved " (xx. 2). Once more (xxi. 7) he is designated 
in the same way. He it is who is spoken of as " an- 
other disciple," and " that other disciple " (xviii. 15, 
16, compare xx. 2, 3, 4, 8). Nor will it be doubted 
that he is the " one of the two " whose name is not 
given (i. 40), the associate of Andrew. In the appen- 
dix to the Gospel (xxi. 24, compare ver. 20), he is 
declared to be its author. As might be expected from 
the passages just quoted, he refers to himself in the 
third person when asserting that he had witnessed a 
particular occurrence (xix. 35). That he was one of 
those personally conversant with Jesus is left to be 
inferred from his use of the first person plural of the 
pronoun (John i. 14 ; 1 John i. 2, 3) : " We beheld his 
glory," etc. It is not denied by Baur, nor is there any 
reason to doubt, that the author of the Gospel intends 
his readers to believe him to be the Apostle John. 
Now, if it is the apostle himself, who, from a certain 
delicacy of feeling, prefers to veil himself, as it were, 
instead of referring to himself by name, this peculiar 
manner of indicating the authorship of the book is 
easily and natural^ explained. If it be not John, what 
is the alternative? It is not simply that we must 
infer that deceit is intended, but it is deceit of a very 
different sort from that which has been referred to as 
belonging to pseudonymous writings. There is adroit 



APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 263 

painstaking : there is, as Weiss observes, an abandon- 
ment of the naivete which belongs to the authors of 
those books, and which is the sole apology that can be 
pleaded in behalf of them. They do not go to work in 
this sly way. They do not seek to decoy the reader 
into ascribing the book to the pretended author. They 
assume his name without hesitation. On the contrary, 
if the fourth Gospel was not written by John, we have 
an artful imposition, carried from beginning to end of 
the book. We have a product of sheer knavery. The 
forger not only assumes to be John, but, in order to 
accomplish his end, affects modesty. He puts himself 
side by side with Peter, leans on the breast of Jesus, 
goes to the sepulchre, stands before the cross, there to 
have the mother of the Lord committed to his charge, 
but, in order to impose on his readers more effectually, 
takes pains to avoid writing the name of John, — except 
when he speaks of the Baptist, whose usual title he 
suppresses — doing thus from cunning what John the 
Apostle, being of the same name, and his disciple, would 
have done naturally. 

2. The author (if he be not John) is guilty of direct 
falsehood, amounting almost to perjury. He asserts 
that he saw water and blood issue from the side of 
Jesus as he hung on the cross (xix. 34). Baur cor- 
rectly interprets the writer as speaking of himself. He 
would resolve this alleged direct perception of material 
objects into a kind of spiritual discernment, — an intui- 
tion of spiritual effects to follow the death of Jesus. 
What is this but to trifle with historical statements? 
What is it but to confound sober prose with a poesy 
which hardly consists with a sane mind ? If the author 
of the Gospel did not see what he so solemnly assev- 
erates that he did see, his misstatement is due to some- 



264 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF 

thing worse than the mysterious agency called by the 
critic, " die Macht der Idee." 

3. The Gospel is, in a sense, an autobiography. It is 
a record of the origin and development of the author's 
faith in Jesus as the divine Son of God. It is the 
grounds of his own faith which he professes to set 
forth ; and his purpose is to bring others to the same 
faith, or to establish them in it. Why not recount the 
very facts which had planted this deep persuasion in 
his own heart ? Why resort to fictions ? Were not 
the words and works of Christ, which had actually 
evoked faith in his own soul, sufficient for others? 

4. The personal love of the author of the Gospel to 
Jesus is inconsistent with the supposition that it is a 
spurious work. It is evident, from the whole tone of 
the composition, that he regards Jesus with a warm per- 
sonal affection. Whom does he love ? Is it an unreal 
person,- called into being by imagination ? The person 
whom he loves is the historic Jesus. Of him he says, 
" Which we have seen with our eyes, which we have 
looked upon, and our hands have handled " (1 John 
i. 1). He is conscious, with a mingled humility and^ 
joy, that he had been specially an object of the love 
of Jesus, — " the disciple whom Jesus loved.'! With 
Jesus he is consciously united by the closest personal 
tie. Shall we say that the author imagined a charac- 
ter, and then, conceiving of him as an actual person 
who had said and done what imagination had ascribed 
to him, gives to this product of fancy his heart's deep- 
est love ? This is to impute to the author insanity. 

5. The tender simplicity which marks so many pas- 
sages of the narrative stamps them with the seal of 
truth. The record of the tears of Jesus on witnessing 
the sorrow of Mary and her friends ; the saying, that as 



APOSTOLIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 265 

death approached, having loved his disciples, " he loved 
them to the end;" the pathetic words, "Behold thy 
mother," "Behold thy son," which were spoken from 
the cross — to think of these, as the inventions of a theo- 
logical speculatist who is bent on writing up or writing 
down a person or theory is an unnatural and offensive 
supposition. 

To complete this discussion, it is necessary to notice 
a middle theor}^ which has found favor with some re- 
cent writers ; namely, that disciples of John composed 
the Gospel on the basis of oral instruction which they 
had received from him. Mr. Matthew Arnold has con- 
jectured that the Ephesian presbyters, partly on -the 
foundation of materials furnished by the apostle, are 
the authors of the book. 1 Clement of Alexandria, as 
it was said above, reports the tradition that John wrote 
at the urgent request of familiar friends. The Mura- 
torian fragment makes a like statement, with the addi 
tional circumstance of a revelation to Andrew, to the 
effect that John " should write down every thing, and 
all should certify." 2 There is no patristic support for 
the hypothesis just explained. But what compels its 
rejection is the testimony, respecting the authorship of 
the book, which the writer himself gives in the peculiar, 
indirect form which has been adverted to. He is 
brought before his readers in such a manner that the 
necessary alternative of denying his personal author- 
ship is the supposition of intentional deceit. 

i God and the Bible, p. 248. 

2 Mr. Arnold renders the word recognoscentibus "revise." This is a 
possible, but not the usual meaning of the word. It signifies " to in- 
spect," "to examine" with a view to approval, hence "to indorse" 
or " authenticate." This appears to be its meaning in the document re- 
ferred to. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF THE APOSTLES' TESTIMONY 
AS PRESENTED BY THE EVANGELISTS. 

In the last two chapters, evidence has been brought 
forward to prove that the Gospels were written by apos- 
tles and companions of apostles ; in particular, that the 
fourth Gospel is the work of John ; that the first Gos- 
pel, at least in its original form, and as to the main por- 
tion of its contents, had Matthew for its author, and 
that it existed in the Greek, and in its present compass, 
while the generation of the first disciples of Jesus, by 
whom it was acknowledged, was still in being ; that the 
second and third Gospels were composed by contem- 
poraries who brought together the information which 
they had sought and obtained from apostles, and from 
others who were immediately cognizant of the facts. 
The Gospels thus meet one test of trustworthy histori- 
cal evidence, — that it shall come from witnesses or 
well-informed contemporaries. They present the testi- 
mony which the apostles gave to their converts respect- 
ing the words and actions of Jesus. We have to show 
that this testimony is entitled to credit. Let it be 
understood that in this place we have nothing to do 
with the theological doctrine of inspiration, or with 
the nature and limits of the divine help afforded to the 
historical writers of the New Testament in the compo- 
sition of their books. That subject is irrelevant to the 
present discussion. What we have to establish is the 



TRUSTWORTHINESS OF THE APOSTLES' TESTIMONY. 267 

essential credibility of the evangelists ; in other words, 
to show that the narrative which they give of the life 
of Jesus may be relied on as fully as we rely on the 
biographies of other eminent personages in the past 
which are known to have been composed by honest, 
and, in other respects, competent historians. 

1. The fact of the selection of the apostles, and the 
view deliberately taken both by Jesus and by them- 
selves of their function, are a strong argument for their 
credibility. 

In inquiring whether the Gospel history is true or 
not, it is, first of all, important to ascertain what view 
Jesus took of the life he was leading among men, and 
also to observe in what light his career was regarded 
by his followers. Had his teaching, and the events oc- 
curring in connection with his life, such a significance 
in his own eyes, that he meant them to be the subject 
of testimony ? Did he design that they should be re- 
membered, and be faithfully narrated to those beyond 
the circle of immediate observers? In other words, 
had he, and his followers with him, an " historical feel- 
ing " as regards the momentous occurrences, as they 
proved to be, belonging to his career ? This question is 
conclusively answered by the fact of a deliberate selec- 
tion by him of a body of persons to be with him, who 
were deputed to relate what they saw and heard, and 
who distinctly understood this to be an essential part 
of their business. They were called " The Twelve ; " 
and so current was this appellation at an early day, 
that Paul thus designates them even in referring to the 
time when Judas had fallen out of their number (1 
Cor. xv. 5). The idea which they had of their office 
was explicitly pointed out by Peter when he stated the 
qualifications of the one who should be chosen in place 



268 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

of Judas (Acts i. 21-25). It may be remarked, before 
quoting the passage, that, if there were any just ground 
for suspecting the accuracy of Luke in general, it could 
have no application in this place. There is no room 
for the bias of a Pauline disciple, since the transaction 
is one in which it is Peter who appears as the leader ; 
and the thing proposed is the completion of the num- 
ber of "the twelve." The passage reads as follows: 
" Wherefore of these men which have companied with 
us" — that is, travelled about with us — "all the time 
that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us," — 
that is, was in constant intercourse with us, — " begin- 
ning from the baptism of John unto that same day 
that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to 
be a witness with us of his resurrection." The resur- 
rection is particularly mentioned as the fact most prom- 
inent in the apostle's testimony. Here is a deliberate 
consciousness on the part of Peter, that he and his fel- 
low-apostles were clothed with the responsibility of 
witnesses, and that, to be of their number, one must 
have the necessary qualification of a credible witness, — ■ 
a personal knowledge of that about which he is to tes- 
tify. " We are witnesses," said Peter, on a subsequent 
occasion, " of all things which he did both in the land 
of the Jews and in Jerusalem" (Acts x. 39). 1 Their 
commission was to "teach all nations," and to teach 
them the commandments of Jesus (Matt, xxviii. 20). 
His teaching was to be brought to their remembrance 
(John xiv. 26). They were forewarned that they 
would be arraigned before magistrates, to give reasons 
for their adherence to him (Matt. x. 18; Luke xxi. 12). 
The promise of the Spirit is given in a form to exalt, 
and not to diminish, the importance of the historical 
i Cf. Luke xxiv. 47-49 : Acts i. 8. 



TRUSTWORTHINESS OF THE APOSTLES' TESTIMONY. 269 

facts of the life and teaching of Jesus (John xiv. 15 
seq., 25, 26, xv. 24-27, xvi. 14; Luke xxi. 14, 15). 
The Apostle John speaks of himself as an eye-witness 
(John i. 14, xix. 35, cf. xxi. 24). Luke, at the begin- 
ning of his Gospel, refers to his having consulted, with 
painstaking, those who had heard and witnessed the 
things to be recorded by him (Luke i. 1-5). His ob- 
ject in writing is to satisfy Theophilus that his Chris- 
tian belief rested on a good foundation of evidence. 
It is plain that the apostles and evangelists are dis- 
tinctly conscious of their position. 1 They are aware 
that they have to fulfil the duty of witnesses. There 
is this barrier against fancy and delusion. It is a great 
point in favor of their credibility. 

2. The apostles never ceased to be conscious that 
they were disciples. They never ceased to look back 
upon the words and actions of Christ, with the pro- 
foundest interest, and to regard them as a sacred 
treasure left in their hands to be communicated to an 
ever-widening circle. In that life, as it had actually 
passed before their eyes, they placed the foundation of 
all their hope and of the hope of the world. There is 
not the least sign that any enthusiasm which they felt 
in their work ever carried them away from this histor- 
ical anchorage. They received the precious legacy 
which it devolved on them to convey to others, in a 
spirit of sobriety and conscientiousness, and with such 
a sense of its value and sacredness, that they were cut 
off from the temptation to add to it or subtract from it. 
They were as far as possible from regarding what they 
had received as a mere starting-point for musings and 
speculations of their own. They were not " many mas- 
ters," but continued to hold the reverent, dependent 
position of pupils. 

i See also Paul, 1 Cor. xv. 3-9, 14, 15. 



270 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

3. The apostles relate, without the least attempt at 
apology or concealment, instances of ignorance and 
weakness on their part, together with the reproofs on 
this account which they received from the Master. 

This proves their honesty ; but, more than that, it 
illustrates the objective character of their testimony. 
That they were taken up by the matter itself, so that 
all personal considerations sunk out of sight, is the 
main fact which we are now endeavoring to illustrate. 
So absorbing is their interest in what actually occurred, 
that they do not heed its effect on their own reputation. 
They do not think of themselves. They narrate what 
exhibits them in an unfavorable light with as much art- 
less simplicity as if they were not personally affected by 
it. When Jesus taught them that no defilement could 
be contracted by eating one rather than another kind of 
food, at which Uie Pharisees were offended, Peter asked 
him to explain " the parable," or obscure saying. They 
tell us (Matt. xv. 16 ; Mark vii. 18) that Jesus answered, 
"Are ye also yet without understanding?" He ex- 
pressed, they say, astonishment and regret that even 
they could not discern his meaning. When told to 
beware of "the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees," 
they obtusely surmised that the injunction had refer- 
ence to a possible deficiency of bread. They report the 
severe reproach, which this called forth, of a littleness 
of faith, a failure to remember the miracle of the loaves 
(Matt. xvi. 8 ; Mark viii. 17-21). 1 They tell us how 
they confessed their own weakness of faith (Luke xvii. 
5). Repeatedly they state that they did not compre- 

1 The strong expression of grief and weariness, " O faithless and 
perverse generation ! " etc. (Matt. xvii. 17), is omitted above, for the 
reason that the parallel (Mark ix. 19) makes it, perhaps, doubtful 
whether the disciples were included among those addressed in the 
apostrophe. Matt. xvii. 20 would suggest that they were. 



TRUSTWORTHINESS OF THE APOSTLES' TESTIMONY. 271 

liend or take in the predictions of his suffering death, 
which were addressed to them by Jesus. They repre- 
sent themselves to have clung so tenaciously to the 
idea of a political Messiah, that after the death of Jesus 
they expressed their disappointment in the words, " We 
trusted that it should have been he which should have 
redeemed Israel." And, even after the resurrection, 
they anxiously inquired of him, " Wilt thou at this 
time restore again the kingdom to Israel ? " This false 
conception of the Messiah's work led to expressions 
on their part which deeply wounded Jesus. These are 
faithfully reported by them. They inform us (Matt, 
xvi. 23; cf. Mark viii. 33; Luke iv. 8) that Peter's 
protest against the suggestion that Jesus was to suffer 
death elicited from him such a rebuke as nothing but 
the feeling that he was tempted to sin by a friend by 
whom he ought rather to be supported on the hard 
path of duty, could evoke : " Get thee behind me, Sa- 
tan," — adversary of the will of God, tempter, — "for 
thou art an offence" — a stumbling-block — " unto me ; 
for thou savorest not " — mindest not — " the things that 
be of God," — God's will, God's cause, — "but those 
that be of men." This heavy, humiliating rebuke is 
recorded by all the synoptists. It entered into the 
story which the apostles, Peter included, were accus- 
tomed to relate. Other instances when they must have 
felt humbled by the Saviour's displeasure are recorded 
with the same candor. For example, when they re- 
pelled those who brought little children to him, Jesus 
" was much displeased," and bade them let the children 
come to him (Mark x. 13, 14 ; cf. Matt. xix. 14 ; Luke 
xviii. 16). 

What surer mark of an honest narrator can exist 
than a willingness to give a plain, unvarnished account 



272 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

of his own mortifying mistakes, and the consequent re- 
buffs, whether just or not, which he has experienced? 
When Boswell writes that Johnson said to him, with a 
stern look, " Sir, I have known David Garrick longer 
than you have done, and I know no right you have to . 
talk to me on the subject," or when he writes, again, 
that Johnson said to him, " Sir, endeavor to clear your 
mind of cant," no one can doubt that the biographer is 
telling a true story. Men are not likely to invent 
anecdotes to their own discredit. When we find them 
in any author, a strong presumption is raised in favor 
of his general truthfulness. 

4. The apostles related, and the evangelists record, 
serious delinquencies of which the former were guilty, 
— unworthy tempers of feeling, and offences of a grave 
character. 

They tell us of the ambition and rivalry which 
sprang up among them, and of the wrangles that en- 
sued. The mother of John and James petitioned that 
her sons might have the highest places of honor in the 
new kingdom, of the nature of which she had so poor a 
conception (Matt. xx. 20, 21). The two apostles joined 
in the request (Mark x. 37), having first tried to draw 
from their Master a promise that they should have 
whatever they might ask for. The other ten disciples 
were angry with John and James for preferring such a 
request (Mark x. 41). One da} 7 , on their way to Caper- 
naum, the disciples fell into a dispute on the same ques- 
tion, — who should have the precedence (Mark ix. 34; 
cf. Luke ix. 46, xxii. 24). Altercations of this sort, 
so they themselves related, broke out in their com- 
pany on different occasions. Will the reader ponder 
the fact that all four of the evangelists give a circum- 
stantial account of the denials of Peter ? (Matt. xxvi. 



TRUSTWORTHINESS OF THE APOSTLES' TESTIMONY. 273 

58 seq. ; Mark xiv. 54 seq. ; Luke xxii. 54 seq. ; John 
xviii. 15 seq.) Here was the apostle who had a kind 
of leadership among them. It was he whose preaching 
was most effective among the Jews everywhere (Gal. 
ii. 8). Yet this undisguised account of his cowardice, 
treachery, and falsehood, on a most critical occasion, is 
presented in detail in the evangelical narrative. It is 
impossible to doubt that it formed a part of the story 
of the crucifixion, which the apostles, each and all of 
them, told to their converts. Could a more striking 
proof of simple candor be afforded ? Is it not obvious 
that the narrators sank their own personality — merged 
it, as it were — in the absorbing interest with which 
they looked back on the scenes which they had beheld, 
and in which they had taken part? And then they 
relate that at the crucifixion they all forsook Jesus, and 
fled (Matt. xxvi. 56 ; Mark xiv. 50). They make no 
attempt to conceal the fact that they left his burial to 
be performed by one who was comparatively a stranger, 
and by the women whose devotion overcame their 
terror, or who considered that their sex would be their 
safeguard. Beyond the conscientious spirit which this 
portrayal of their own infirmities and misconduct com- 
pels us to attribute to the apostles, these features of 
the Gospel narrative show that they forgot themselves, 
so intent were they on depicting things just as they 
had occurred. In other words, they impress on us the 
objective character of the Gospel history as it is given 
on the pages of the evangelists. 

5. It is an impressive indication of the objective 
character of the apostolic narrative, that the manifesta- 
tions of human infirmity in Jesus, infirmity which does 
not involve sin, are referred to in the plainest manner, 
and without the least apology or concealment. These 



274 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

passages occur side by side "with the accounts of 
miracles. Had there been a conscious or latent dis- 
position to glorify their Master at the expense of truth, 
it is scarcely possible that they would have spread out 
these illustrations of human weakness. It is only 
necessary to remind the reader of the record of the 
agony of Jesus in the garden. We are informed that 
he was overwhelmed with mental distress. He sought 
the close companionship of the three disciples who were 
most intimate with him. He prostrated himself on the 
earth in supplication to God. As he lay on the ground, 
one of the evangelists tells us that the sweat fell from 
his body, either actually mingled with blood, or in drops 
like drops of blood issuing from the wounds of a fallen 
soldier. " My soul " — thus he had spoken to the three 
disciples — "is exceeding sorrowful unto death." In 
the presence of passages like these, how can it be 
thought that the apostles were enthusiasts, oblivious 
or careless of facts, and bent on presenting an ideal of 
their own devising, rather than the life of Jesus just as 
they had seen it ? * 

6. The truthfulness of the apostles is proved by their 
submission to extreme suffering and to death for the 
testimony which they gave. 

They had nothing to gain, from an earthly point of 
view, by relating the history which is recorded in the 
Gospels : on the contrary, they had every thing to lose. 
It had been distinctly foretold to them that they would 
be " delivered up to be afflicted," delivered up to pain 
and distress, be objects of universal hatred, and be 

1 It does not fall within the plan of John to repeat this narrative of 
the synoptists. But John reports an instance of the deep distress of 
Jesus: "Now is my soul troubled," etc. (xii. 27). John alone relates 
that he " wept" (xi. 35). 



TRUSTWORTHINESS OF THE APOSTLES' TESTIMONY. 275 

killed (Matt. xxiv. 9). They were forewarned that 
they would be seized, imprisoned, brought before rulers 
as criminals, betrayed by friends and nearest relatives 
(Luke xxi. 12-16, cf. xi. 49). " The time cometh," it 
was said, " that whosoever killeth you will think that 
he doeth God service " (John xvi. 2, cf. xv. 20, xvi. 33). 
These predictions were verified in their experience. 
Whatever view is taken of the authorship of the Gos- 
pels, none can doubt that these passages are a picture 
of what the apostles really endured. The persecution 
of the apostles was the natural result of the spirit 
which had prompted the crucifixion of Jesus. It began 
as soon as they began publicly to preach " Jesus and 
the resurrection." There were men, like Saul of Tar- 
sus, eager to hunt down the heretics. The murder of 
Stephen occurred in the year 33 or 34, about two years 
after the death of Christ. The apostles were objects of 
mingled scorn and wrath. Their situation is described 
by St. Paul as follows : " For I think that God hath 
set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to 
death" — or doomed to death — "for we are made a 
spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. 
. . . Even unto this present hour we both hunger and 
thirst, and are naked and are buffeted, and have no 
certain dwelling-place. . . . Being reviled, we bless ; 
being persecuted, we suffer it ; being defamed, we en- 
treat : we are made as the filth of the world, and are 
the offscouring of all things unto this day " (1 Cor. iv. 
9-14). There were certain peculiar exposures to 
suffering in the case of Paul, yet he describes here the 
common lot of the apostles. Defamation, public scorn, 
physical hardship, assaults by mobs, and punishments 
by the civil authority, imprisonment, death, — this was 
what they saw before them, and what they actually 



276 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

suffered. Ostracism, with all the indignities and pains 
that hitter fanaticism can inflict along with it, was the 
reward which they had to expect for their testimony to 
the teaching, the miracles, the resurrection, following 
the death, of Jesus. To suspect them of dishonesty is 
to imagine that men will fling away property, friends, 
home, country, and life itself, for the sake of telling a 
falsehood that is to bring them no sort of advantage. 

Hardly less irrational is it to charge them with self- 
delusion. It has been shown in a preceding chapter, 
by internal evidence derived from the Gospels, and by 
other proofs, that miracles were wrought by Christ. It 
has been shown that the theory of hallucination will 
not avail to explain the unanimous, immovable belief 
of the apostles in his resurrection. The twelve at- 
tended Jesus through his public ministry, from the bap- 
tism in Jordan to the close. The occurrences which 
necessarily presuppose the exertion of miraculous power 
took place in their presence. They were events in 
which they had a deep concern. The apostles were 
not wanting in common sense, and they were conscien- 
tious men. They were the men whom Jesus Christ 
selected to be his companions. Unless, as the enemies 
of Jesus charged, he was "a deceiver," and most ac- 
complished in the art, how could they mistake the 
character of these works, which, as they alleged, he 
performed before their eyes? 

But as the miracles are the part of the Gospel his- 
tory which in these days chiefly provokes incredulity, 
it is well to consider this topic further. No more time 
need be spent on Hume's argument to show that a mira- 
cle is, under no circumstances, capable of being proved. 
As Mill observes, all that Hume has made out is, that 
no evidence can prove a miracle to an atheist, or to 



TRUSTWORTHINESS OF THE APOSTLES' TESTIMONY. 277 

a deist who supposes himself able to prove that God 
would not interfere to produce the miraculous event 
in question. 1 We assume the being and moral attri- 
butes of God ; and we have no call to discuss the char- 
acter, in other respects, of Hume's reasoning. 2 

We are not called upon to confute the opinion, that 
the first three Gospels — the historical character of the 
fourth has already been vindicated — were moulded by 
a doctrinal purpose or bias, since that opinion finds no 
countenance now from judicious critics of whatever 
theological creed. The first Gospel contains numerous 
passages in which the catholic character of Christianity 
is emphatically set forth. 3 " Our Matthew," says Man- 
gold, an unprejudiced critic, not at all wedded to tra- 
ditional views, "is, to be sure, written by a Jewish 
Christian for Jewish Christians ; " " but he has given 
us no writing with a Jewish Christian doctrinal bias." 
" The words of Jesus, quoted in Matthew," says Keuss, 
" which form the doctrinal kernel of the book, are not 
selected in the slightest degree from that point of view," 
— that of the Palestinian Jewish Christianity, — " but 
go beyond it in a hundred places, and bespeak so much 
the more the faithfulness of the tradition." 4 Mark has 
decidedly outgrown Judaism; "but no dogmatic ten- 
dency can on this account be saddled on his presenta- 
tion of the Gospel history, as long as it is not shown 
that Christ himself did not rise above Judaism, and 
that the Jewish Christian Matthew looks on Christi- 



1 J. S Mill, System of Logic, vol. ii. p. 110. 

2 See chap. iv. of this work. 

8 Matt. viii. 11, ix. 16 seq., xii. 8, xiii. 31, xx. 1 seq., xxi. 28, 33, xxii. 
40, xxiii. 33, xxiv. 14, xxviii. 19 ; cf. Essays on the Supernatural Origin 
of Christianity, pp. 213-215; Reuss, Gesch. d. heilig. Schriftt. d. N. T., 
p. 195. 

* Gesch., etc., p. 194. 



278 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

anity as a development within the limits of Judaism." 1 
In Luke, "not only does the history of Jesus acquire 
in general no other significance than in Matthew, no- 
where is there disclosed a design to set aside or to 
overcome an imperfect understanding of it: on the 
contrary, there occur numerous words and acts, drawn 
from the general tradition, which, when literally taken, 
rather wear a Jewish Christian coloring. But here it 
will be nearest to the truth to affirm that not a party 
feeling, but the most independent historical research, — 
or, if we prefer so to call it, a thirst for the fullest pos- 
sible information, — has governed in the collection of 
the matter." 2 The whole charge of being Tendenz- 
tSchriften, which Baur and his school brought against 
the Gospels, is founded on untenable theories respecting 
their authorship and order of composition. 

If the " tendency-theory " no longer calls for detailed 
refutation, the same thing is true of the attack of 
Strauss on the credibility of the Gospels, which is 
founded on their alleged inconsistencies. This attack 
is now acknowledged by judicious scholars to be merely 
the work of an expert advocate, bent on finding con- 
tradictions in testimony which he is anxious to break 
down. 3 The Gospel narratives are wholly inartificial. 
No compositions could be more open to assault from 
critics who ignore this character that belongs to them, 
and labor to magnify the importance of variations 
which only serve to prove that there was no collusion 
among the several writers, and no attempt on the part 
of anybody to frame a story that should be proof 
against hostile comment. 

1 Mangold, p. 342; cf. Holtzinann, Die Synopt. Evangg., p. 3S4 seq. 

2 Reuss, p. 212. 

8 For a full reply to Strauss on this topic, see The Supernatural Ori- 
gin of Christianity, chap. vi. 



TRUSTWORTHINESS OF THE APOSTLES' TESTIMONY. 279 

As the miracles rest on the same grounds of evidence 
as the other matters of fact to which the apostles tes- 
tify, special reasons are required for discrediting their 
testimony as regards this one class of events. Is it said 
that miracles are incredible ? The answer is, that, being 
a necessary element and the natural adjuncts of revela- 
tion, they are not incredible, unless the fact of reve- 
lation, and of the Christian revelation in particular, is 
incredible. Their improbability is just as great as, and 
no greater than, the improbability that God would re- 
veal himself to men, and send his Son to save them. 
Is it objected that there have been a vast number of 
pretended miracles? The answer of Bishop Butler 
appears sufficient, that mankind have not been oftener 
deluded by these pretences than by others. "Preju- 
dices almost without number and without name, ro- 
mance, affectation, humor, a desire to engage attention 
or to surprise, the party-spirit, custom, little competi- 
tions, unaccountable likings and dislikings, — these in- 
fluence men strongly in common matters." As they 
are not reflected on by those in whom they operate, 
their effect is like that of enthusiasm. And yet, as 
Butler adds, human testimony in common matters is 
not, on this account, discredited. Because some narra- 
tives of miracles spring out of mere enthusiasm, it is 
an unwarrantable inference that all are to be accounted 
for in this way. 1 

1 What is said in the Gospels of Jesus prior to his public ministry calls 
for special remark. Of this portion of his life, the apostles were not 
directly cognizant. With regard to it they were dependent upon others 
for information. The brief and fragmentary character of the introduc- 
tory narratives in Matthew and Luke is adapted to inspire confidence, 
rather than distrust, since it indicates authentic tradition as the proba- 
ble source of them. The most important fact contained in them is the 
miraculous conception. For the historical truth of this record, there is 
proof in the circumstance that Matthew's and Luke's narratives are 



280 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTTC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

from separate sources, and are complementary to each other. More- 
over, these sources are Jewish. Certainly Luke's account is from a 
Jewish Christian document. There was nothing in Jewish ideas to 
lead to the origination of a myth of this sort. As for Judaizing 
Christians, they would be the last to imagine an incident so contrary to 
their dogmatic tendencies. As to Isa. vii. 14, there is no proof that 
it had been applied by the Jews to the Messiah; and the Hebrew term 
used there did not necessarily denote an unmarried person. Luke re- 
peatedly refers to the recollections of Mary respecting the early days of 
Jesus (Luke ii. 19, 51). It is probable that she lived at Jerusalem with 
John. That John and Paul do not connect the Saviour's divinity, or 
even his sinlessness, with his miraculous birth, goes to prove that doc- 
trinal belief did not engender the story. Luke's designation of Jesus 
as holy, in connection with his miraculous conception (Luke i. 35; cf. 
Matt. i. 20), is not equivalent to sinlessness. If the origination of such 
a myth coujd be credited to Gentile Christians, which, especially at so 
early a date, is an unlikely supposition, we could not account for its 
adoption in the circle of Palestinian Jewish Christians. How the idea 
of a miraculous element in the birth of " the second Adam " comports 
with the function that was to belong to him as a new creative potence 
in humanity, together with the force of the historical proofs, is cogently 
presented by Neander, Leben Jesu, p. 14 seq. See also the instructive 
discussion of Weiss, Leben Jesu, i. 212 seq. That difficulties should 
exist in connection with details in the narratives of the opening period 
of Christ's life, which are collected in Matthew and Luke, is to be ex- 
pected. It is natural that Strauss should make the most of them. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE MIRACLES OP THE GOSPEL IN CONTRAST WITH 
HEATHEN AND ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES.* 

It is frequently alleged, that the evidence in favor of 
pagan and ecclesiastical miracles, which fill so large a 
space in chronicles of a former day, but which are gener- 
ally allowed to be fictitious, is as strong as that for the 
miracles recorded in the Gospels. What is to be said of 
the ecclesiastical miracles is, in the main, applicable to 
the miraculous tales found in ancient heathen writers, 
from Herodotus to Livy, and from Livy to the fall of 
the Graeco-Roman paganism. To the stream of church 
miracles, then, which flows down from the early centu- 
ries, through the middle ages, almost or quite to our 
own time, we may confine our attention. Is the evi- 
dence for these alleged miracles equivalent in force 
to that of the miracles recorded by the evangelists? 
So far from this being true, there are broad marks of 
distinction by which these last are separated from the 
general current of miraculous narrative. 

1. The Gospel miracles are for the express purpose 
of attesting revelation. They are the proper counter- 
part and proof of revelation. They occur, with few 
exceptions, only at the marked epochs of revelation, — 
the Mosaic era, the reform and advance of the Old 

1 Among the valuable discussions of this subject, are Douglas's 
Criterion, Newman's Two Essays (4th ed., 1875), and Mozley's Bainptou 
Lectures. 

281 



282 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

Testament religion under the great prophets, and in 
connection with the ministry of Christ and the found- 
ing of the church. "We know," it was said, "that 
thou art a teacher come from God ; for no man can do 
these miracles that thou doest, except God be with 
him." (John iii. 2.) 

On the contrary, ecclesiastical miracles profess to be 
for a lower, and, in general, for a signally lower end. 
At the best, they are to give efficacy to the preaching 
of a missionary. Miracles were requisite as a part and 
proof of revelation. When they have once taken place, 
testimony is all that can reasonably be demanded as a 
ground of faith. There is no call for a perpetual inter- 
ruption of the course of nature. Even the Roman- 
Catholic Church holds that the whole deposit of reve- 
lation was with Christ and the apostles. The dogmatic 
decisions of popes and councils are only the exposition 
of that primitive doctrine. Their function is not to 
originate, but to define, Christian truth. 

But, in a vast majority of instances, the ecclesiastical 
miracles are for some end below that of serving as the 
credentials of a missionary. At the best, they are to 
relieve the distress of an individual, with no ulterior 
and more comprehensive end such as attaches to the 
miracles wrought by Jesus and the apostles. In a mul- 
titude of instances they simply minister to an appetite 
for marvels. Witness the wonders that crowd the pages 
of the apocryphal Gospels. Many are for objects ex- 
tremely trivial. Tertullian gives an account of a vision 
in which an angel prescribed to a female the size and 
length of her veil. Some, like the Jansenist miracles 
at the tomb of Abbe Paris, to which Hume appeals, 
are in the cause of a political or religious part} r , and 
against an antagonistic faction. Very frequently mira- 



HEATHEN AND ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 283 

cles are valued, and said to be wrought, merely as veri- 
fications of the sanctity of a person of high repute for 
piety. 

The distinction which we are here considering is one 
of great importance. No doubt there is a presumption 
against the probable occurrence of miracles, which 
grows out of our instinctive belief in the uniformity of 
nature, and the conviction we have, that an established 
order is beneficent. This presumption Christians believe 
to be neutralized by the need of revelation, and by the 
perceived character of the Christian system and of its 
author. But in proportion as the end assigned to mira- 
cles is lower, that adverse presumption remains in full 
force. 

2. The Gospel miracles were not wrought in coinci- 
dence with a prevailing system, and for the furtherance 
of it, but in opposition to prevalent beliefs. 

This is another striking difference. Jesus won all of 
his disciples to faith in him. They did not inherit this 
faith : they did not grow up in it. He and they had 
to confront opposition at every step. " The world," he 
said, " hateth me." His doctrines and his idea of the 
kingdom of God clashed with Judaic opinion and feel- 
ing. Christianity had to push forward in the face of 
the hostility of all the existing forms of religion. But 
how is it with the ecclesiastical miracles of later ages ? 
They occurred, if wrought at all, in the midst of com- 
munities and smaller circles which were already in fer- 
vent sympathy with the cause in behalf of which they 
were supposed to be performed. The narrations of them 
sprang up among those who were, beforehand, full of 
confidence in the church as the possessor of miraculous 
power, and in the individuals to whose agency such 
miracles were ascribed. Recollecting what occurred 



284 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

at the origin of the church, full of faith in the super- 
natural powers which were thought still to reside in it, 
men were on the lookout for startling manifestations 
of them. There was a previous habit of credulity in 
this particular direction. The same scepticism which is 
deemed reasonable in respect to stories of miracles per- 
formed by Dominicans or Franciscans, where the rival 
interests of the two orders are involved, is natural in 
regard to wonders said to have been wrought in behalf 
of a creed assumed to be true, and enthusiastically 
cherished. In Galilee, Judaea, and in the various prov- 
inces of the Roman Empire, Christianity was a new re- 
ligion. It was at the start an unpopular religion, in 
a struggle against wide-spread, bitter prejudice. The 
whole atmosphere was thus totally different from that 
which prevailed in the middle ages, or even in the 
Roman Empire, after the gospel had succeeded in gain- 
ing hundreds of thousands of converts. 

3. The motives to fraud, which justly excite suspi- 
cion in the case of many of the ecclesiastical miracles, 
did not exist in the case of the miracles of the gospel. 

It cannot be denied that pious fraud played a promi- 
nent part in producing the tales of the supernatural 
which are interspersed in the biographies of the saints. 
Ecclesiastical superiors have often given a free rein to 
popular credulity, on the maxim that the end sanctifies 
the means. Where positive trickery has not been 
practised, circumstances have been concealed, which, if 
known, would have stripped many a transaction of 
the miraculous aspect which it wore in the eyes of the 
ignorant. The same spirit that gave rise to the mediae- 
val forgeries, of which the Pseudo-Isidorian decretals 
are a conspicuous example, was capable of conniving 
at numberless deceits which served to bolster up sacer- 



HEATHEN AND ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 285 

dotal pretensions. In order that an individual may be 
enrolled as a saint, and invoked in this character, it 
has been held to be indispensable that he should have 
wrought miracles. Miracles are held to be a badge of 
sainthood. It is easy to conceive, not only what a 
stimulus this theory must have afforded to the devout 
imagination, but also what conscious exaggeration and 
wilful invention must have sprung out of such a creed. 

When we enter the company of Christ and the apos- 
tles, we find that this incentive to the invention of 
miracles is utterly absent. We find, rather, the deep- 
est antipathy to every species of deceit and fraud. 

4. A great number of the Roman-Catholic miracles 
can be explained by natural causes, without any im- 
peachment of the honesty of the narrators. Frequently, 
natural events of no uncommon occurrence are viewed 
as supernatural. The physical effect of vigils, and fast- 
ings and pilgrimages, on the maladies of those who re- 
sorted to these practices, was, no doubt, in many cases 
salutary. As the body acts on the mind, so the mind 
powerfully affects the body. Heated imagination, ar- 
dent faith, the confident hope of relief, may produce 
physical effects of an extraordinary character. There 
is a variety of nervous disorders which are cured by a 
sudden shock which turns feeling into a new channel. 
Mohammed was a victim of hysteria attended by cata- 
lepsy. Especially when medical knowledge was scanty, 
exceptional conditions of mind and body were easily 
mistaken for supernatural phenomena. 

If the miracles of the Gospels consisted only of vis- 
ions, or 



of the cure of less aggravated cases of demo- 



\-u^ 



niacal possession, or of the healing of certain diseases 
which spring mainly from nervous derangement, there 
might be no occasion for referring them to supernatural 



286 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

agency. But such miracles as the cure of the lunatic 
at Gadara, the multiplication of the loaves, the conver- 
sion of water into wine, the raising of the son of the 
widow of Nain, and of Lazarus, the resurrection of 
Jesus himself, baffle every attempt at naturalistic solu 
tion. If miracles such as these are admitted on the 
ground of the testimony to them, taken in connection 
with the exalted character of Christ and with the doc- 
trine of Christianity, it is alike unreasonable and profit- 
less to resort to any naturalistic explanation of visions 
and cures, which, considered by themselves, might per- 
haps be accounted for by that method. The whole set 
of Gospel miracles belong together. If certain of them 
do not of necessity carry us beyond th<- limit of physio- 
logical and psychological causes, and if this boundary 
is not strictly definable, there are others, equally well 
attested, which do undeniably lie beyond this limit, and 
must, if the phenomena are admitted, be referred to the 
interposition of God. 

5. The incompetence of the witnesses to ecclesiasti- 
cal miracles, as a rule, is a decisive reason for discredit- 
ing their accounts. 

We do not include under this head an intention to 
deceive. Reports of Pagan and ecclesiastical miracles 
frequently rest on no contemporary evidence. It was 
more than a century after the death of Apollonius of 
Tyana when Philostratus wrote his life. Sixteen years 
after the death of Ignatius Loyola, Ribadeneira wrote 
his biography. At that time he knew of no miracles 
performed by his hero. St. Francis Xavier himself 
makes but one or two references to wonders wrought 
by him ; and these occurrences do not necessarily imply 
any thing miraculous. In the case of an ancient saint, 
Gregory Thaumaturgus, the life that we possess was 



HEATHEN AND ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 287 

written long after his time by Gregory Nyssa. Boni- 
face, the apostle to the Germans, and Ansgar, the apos- 
tle to the Scandinavians, do not themselves claim to be 
miracle-workers. It is others who make the claim for 
them. Of the string of miracles which Bede furnishes, 
there are few, if any, which he affirms to have occurred 
within his personal knowledge. 

Where there are contemporary narratives, it is evi- 
dent, generally, that the chroniclers are too deficient in 
the habit of accurate observation to be trusted. This 
want of carefulness is manifest in what they have to 
say of ordinary matters. Dr. Arnold gives an example 
of the inaccuracy of Bede. 1 The Saxon chronicler de- 
scribes a striking phenomenon on the southern coast of 
England, in such a way that one who is familiar with it 
would be quite unable to recognize it from this author's 
description. Where the observation of natural objects 
is so careless, how can we expect a correct account of 
phenomena which are taken for miraculous ? Excited 
feeling, on the watch for marvels, in minds not in the 
least trained to strict observation, renders testimony to 
a great extent worthless. 

Now, who were the original witnesses of the miracles 
of Jesus ? As Cardinal Newman has said, " They were 
vey far from a dull or ignorant race. The inhabitants 
of a maritime and border country (as Galilee was) ; en- 
gaged, moreover, in commerce ; composed of natives of 
various countries, and therefore, from the nature of the 
case, acquainted with more than one language — have 
necessarily their intellects sharpened, and their minds 
considerably enlarged, and are of all men least disposed 
to acquiesce in marvellous tales. Such a people must 
have examined before they suffered themselves to be 

1 Lectures on Modern History (Am. ed.), p. 1128. 



288 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

excited in the degree which the evangelists describe." 
Their conviction, be it observed, was no " bare and in- 
dolent assent to facts which they might have thought 
antecedently probable, or not improbable," but a great 
change in principle and mode of life, and such a change 
as involved the sacrifice of every earthly good. There 
is a vast difference between the dull assent of supersti- 
tious minds, the impressions of unreflecting devotees, 
and that positive faith which transformed the character 
of the first disciples, and moved them to forsake their 
kindred, and to lay down their lives, in attestation of the 
truth of their testimony. A conviction on the part of 
such persons, and attended by consequences like these, 
must have had its origin in an observation of facts 
about which there could be no mistake. 

6. The Gospel miracles, unlike the ecclesiastical, 
were none of them merely tentative, unsuccessful, or 
of doubtful reality. 

In ancient times the temple of iEsculapius was 
thronged by persons in quest of healing at the hands 
of the god. No one could pretend that more than a 
fraction of these votaries were actually healed. Of the 
multitude who failed of the benefit there was no men- 
tion or memory. 

To come down to a later day, many thousands were 
annually touched for the scrofula by the English kings. 
Some recovered; and their recovery, no doubt, was 
blazoned abroad. But, of the generality of those who 
thus received the royal touch, there is not the slightest 
proof that it was followed by a recovery. So, else- 
where, among those to whom miraculous power has 
been attributed, the instances of apparent success were 
connected with uncounted failures of which no record 
is preserved. Even in the cases where it is loudly 



HEATHEN AND ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 289 

claimed that there was every appearance of miracles, as 
in certain of the wonders at the tomb of the Abbe Paris, 
it is found that some have been only partially relieved 
of their maladies, or have experienced soon a recurrence 
of them. 

Mark the contrast presented by the miracles of the 
gospel. They were performed by a definite class of 
persons. They were "the signs of an apostle." The 
main point, however, is, that there were no exceptions, 
none on whom the wonder-working power failed of its 
effect. There were no abortive experiments. All whom 
Jesus attempted to heal were healed. None went away 
as they came. None went away with painful symp- 
toms alleviated, while the disorders were not removed. 
Had such instances of failure occurred, they would not 
have escaped the attention of the apostles and of their 
enemies. Confidence in Christ would have been weak- 
ened, if not subverted. In accounting for the gospel 
miracles, the supposition of accident is thus precluded. 
We do not reason from occasional coincidences. 

7. The grotesque character of many of the ecclesias- 
tical miracles awakens a just presumption against them 
as a class. 

A miracle emanates from the power of God. But it 
will not be, for that reason, at variance with his other 
attributes. As far as an alleged miracle appears to be 
unworthy of God in any particular, it loses its title to 
be credited. 

The miracles in the apocryphal Gospels (such as 
that of the throne of Herod, drawn out to its right 
length by the child Jesus, to remedy a blunder of 
Joseph in making it) give no unfair idea of the style of 
many narratives in the legends of the church. Among 
the miracles attributed to Thomas a Becket is the story 



290 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

that the eyes of a priest of Nantes, who doubted them, 
fell from their sockets. " In remembrance," says Mr. 
Froude, "of his old sporting days, the archbishop would 
mend the broken wings and legs of hawks which had 
suffered from herons." " Dead lambs, pigs, and geese 
were restored to life, to silence Sadducees who doubted 
the resurrection." The biographers of Xavier relate, 
that, having washed the sores of a poor invalid, he 
drank the water, and the sores were forthwith healed. 
Even St. Bernard, preaching on a summer day in a 
church where the people were annoyed by flies, excom- 
municates these winged insects; and in the morning 
they are found to be all dead, and are swept out in 
heaps. It would be unjust to say that trivial, ludi- 
crous, or disgusting circumstances belong to all ecclesi- 
astical miracles. But such features are so common, that 
they affix a corresponding character to the set of won- 
ders, taken as a whole, to which they pertain. 

That the miracles of the Bible have a dignity and 
beauty peculiar to themselves is acknowledged by dis- 
believers ; for instance, by the author of Supernatural 
Religion. If any of them are thought to bear a dif- 
ferent look, they are exceptions. " Hence," observes 
Cardinal Newman, "the Scripture accounts of Eve's 
temptation by the serpent, of the speaking of Balaam's 
ass, of Jonah and the whale, and of the devils sent into 
the herd of swine, are by themselves more or less im- 
probable, being unequal in dignity to the rest." "They 
are then supported," the same author holds, "by the 
system in which they are found, as being a few out of 
a multitude, and therefore but exceptions (and, as we 
suppose, but apparent exceptions) to the general rule." 
This remark implies that their exceptional character 
makes it necessary that they should have an extraordi- 



HEATHEN AND ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 291 

nary support if they are to be credited. When the 
miracles of Scripture are looked at as a body, they are 
seen to be of an elevated character. They are at a 
wide remove in this respect from the common run of 
pagan and ecclesiastical miracles. The contrast is like 
that of a genuine coin with a clumsy counterfeit. 

8. The evidential value of the miracles of the gos- 
pel is not weakened, even if it be admitted that miracu- 
lous events may have occasionally occurred in later 



The restoration of the sick in response to prayer is 
commonly through no visible or demonstrable interfer- 
ence with natural law. Yet no one should be charged 
with credulity for holding, that, in certain exceptional 
instances, the supernatural agency discovers itself by 
evidence palpable to the senses. So discreet an histori- 
ical critic as Neander will not deny that St. Bernard may 
have been the instrument of effecting cures properly 
miraculous. It is true, as was suggested above, that 
missionary work is something to which human powers 
are adequate, and which requires no other aid from 
above than the silent, invisible operation of the Spirit 
of God. Yet Edmund Burke, speaking of the introduc- 
tion of Christianity into Britain by Augustine and his 
associates, remarks: "It is by no means impossible, that, 
for an end so worthy, Providence on some occasions 
might directly have interfered." " I should think it 
very presumptuous to say," writes F. D. Maurice, " that 
it has never been needful, in the modern history of the 
world, to break the idols of sense and experience by the 
same method which was sanctioned in the days of old." 
Those who, like the writers just quoted, hold that 
miraculous events have not been wholly wanting in 
later ages, cannot maintain that they have occurred 



292 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

under such conditions of uniformity and the like, as 
distinguish the miracles of Christ and the apostles. 
The most that can be claimed is, that sometimes they 
have occurred in answer to prayer, — a form of answer 
on which the petitioner has never been able to count. 
The judicious student who surveys the entire history of 
miraculous pretension will be slow to admit the miracu- 
lous in particular instances of the kind described, with- 
out the application of strict tests of evidence. He will 
bear in mind that the great, the principal design of the 
miracle is to serve as at once a constituent and proof of 
revelation. 

A particular examination of the alleged miracles of 
the early age of the church is precluded by the limits 
of the present chapter. The following points are spe- 
cially worthy of attention : — 

1. The miracles said to have been performed in the 
second and third centuries are far less marked and less 
numerous than those referred to in the two centuries 
that followed, — a fact the reverse of that which we 
should expect if these narrations were founded in truth. 

2. The same writers — as Origen, Tertullian, Euse- 
bius, Augustine — who record contemporary miracles, 
imply in other passages that the age of miracles had 
gone by, and that their own times were in marked con- 
trast, in this respect, with the era of the apostles. 

3. The miracles related by the Fathers are mostly 
exorcisms, the healing of the sick, and visions; that 
is, occurrences where natural agencies are most easily 
mistaken for supernatural. Miracles in which this 
error is impossible lack sufficient attestation. 1 

1 For the Patristic passages on these three points, see Mozley's 
Hampton Lectures, p. l'J5 seq. 



HEATHEN AND ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 293 

The true view on this subject appears to be, that 
miraculous manifestations in the church ceased gradu- 
ally. No sharp line of demarcation can be drawn, 
marking off the age of miracles from the subsequent 
period, when the operation of the Divine Providence 
and Spirit no longer was palpably distinguished from 
the movements of natural law. 

As we advance into the fourth century, called the 
Nicene age, we meet with a notable increase in the 
number of alleged miracles. Yet Chrysostom, Am- 
brose, Augustine, speak of the apostolic age as distin- 
guished from their own as having been a period marked 
by miracles. Notwithstanding the high merits of the 
authors of the Nicene era, they discover, more and 
more, the artificial rhetorical tone which had now come 
to infest literature. There was a habit of thought and 
style which tends to breed exaggeration. It was a 
period of decadence. Relic-worship, the invocation of 
martyrs and saints, and like superstitions, established 
themselves in the church; and the alleged miracles 
were frequently associated with these customs. A 
spirit of credulity gained ground. The evidence for 
most of the post-apostolic miracles which the Fathers 
advert to melts away on examination. In cases where 
there is no ground for distrusting the sincerity of the 
narrator, we are bound to consider whether the phe- 
nomena which one of the Fathers reports were known 
to him directly ; and, if they were, whether they neces- 
sarily involve any thing miraculous, — whether they 
may not reasonably be referred to hallucination, or to 
some other source of unconscious illusion. 

As an example, we may take the reports of miracles 
which Augustine has collected in his treatise on the 
City of God. 1 He starts with a reference to the objec- 

1 Lib. xxii. 



294 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

tion that miracles are no longer wrought. " It might 
be replied," he says, "that they are no longer necessary, 
as they were at first." This answer is in keeping with 
other statements made by him, which imply that no 
such miracles were wrought in his time as were done by 
Christ and the apostles. But in this place he affirms 
that miracles are wrought, though more privately, and 
that they are less widely reported. Many of those to 
which he refers are alleged to have been performed in 
connection with the relics of the proto-martyr Stephen, 
which, as was claimed, were discovered in A.D. 415, at 
a place called Carphagamala, in Palestine. Gamaliel, 
the Jewish rabbi, appeared in visions to Lucian, a priest 
of the church there, and informed him, that after 
Stephen had been stoned to death, and his body had 
been left exposed for a day and a night, it was carried, 
by his order, to this place, twenty miles distant. Nico- 
demus, also, he had caused to be interred at the side of 
Stephen, and Gamaliel's own " dear son, Alitas." The 
remains, by the aid of this information, were discov- 
ered, and a new shrine for pilgrims was thus created 
at Jerusalem. A portion of these relics found their 
way to Africa, and became the centre of miraculous 
phenomena, the details of which are given by Augus- 
tine. It certainly requires a great stretch of credulity 
to believe that these relics, thus identified with the 
proto-martyr, ever really belonged to him ; and this 
circumstance suggests beforehand a legitimate doubt as 
to miraculous interpositions in connection with them. 
But Augustine also relates other miracles as having 
occurred in Africa, and it is worth while to notice 
these. The first is described at length : it is the dis- 
appearance of a fistula from the body of a man at 
Carthage, who had not long before undergone a surgical 



HEATHEN AND ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 295 

operation for the same trouble. This event, which fills 
Augustine with devout amazement, is easily accounted 
for by physicians at present, without any recourse to 
the supernatural. It was simply ignorance of physi- 
ology that led to the inference that it was a miracle. 
The next case is that of Innocentia, a Christian woman 
in the same city, who had a cancer on one of her 
breasts, and was cured by the sign of the cross made 
upon it by the first woman whom she saw coming out 
of the baptistery, of whom she had been directed in a 
dream to ask this favor. Here, in the absence of a 
more particular statement of the circumstances, it would 
be rash to suppose a miracle. But the attestation is in 
this case singularly deficient. The supposed miracle 
had been kept secret, much to Augustine's indignation, 
who was somehow informed of the event, and repri- 
manded the woman for not making it public. She re- 
plied that she had not kept silence on the subject. But 
Augustine found, on inquiry, that the women who were 
best acquainted with her "knew nothing of it," and 
" listened in great astonishment," when, at his instiga- 
tion, she told her story. How remarkable, that the 
sudden deliverance from a disorder which the physicians 
had pronounced incurable should not have been known 
to her most intimate female acquaintance! Why did 
she tell Augustine that she had not kept it to herself ? 
How did he himself find it out? The next miracle is 
that of " black woolly-haired boys," who appeared to a 
gouty doctor, and warned him not to be baptized that 
year. They trod on his feet, and gave him the acutest 
pain. He knew them to be devils, and disobeyed them, 
lie was relieved in the very act of baptism, and did not 
suffer from gout afterward. If we suppose that the 
fact was well attested, who would be bold enough to 



296 TIIE GROUNDS OF TIIEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

ascribe it to a miracle? How easy, in a multitude of 
cures of this sort, to confound the antecedent with the 
cause, the post hoc with the propter hoc! Several of 
the miracles which Augustine had gathered into his 
net are of a grotesque character ; as that which pro- 
vided Florentius, a poor tailor of Hippo, with a new 
coat, after a prayer to the twenty martyrs, whose 
shrine was near at hand. Who was the cook that 
found the gold ring in the fish's belly ? and who was 
it that interrogated her on the subject? There are 
three or four instances of the raising of the dead which 
are found in Augustine's list. But of neither of these 
does he pretend to have been an eye-witness ; nor, if 
the circumstances are credited in the form in which 
they are given, is there any thing to prove that death 
had actually taker; place. A swoon, or the temporary 
suspension of the powers of life, may have been in each 
instance all that really occurred. 

Another miracle in Augustine's catalogue is that of 
the martyrs of Milan, which occurred while he was in 
that city, and which is also described circumstantially 
by Ambrose, the celebrated bishop. A violent conflict 
was raging between Ambrose and the mass of the 
populace, on the one side, and the Arian Empress Jus- 
tina, the widow of Valentinian I., with her following, 
on the other. Ambrose had refused her demand that 
one church edifice should be set apart for Arian wor- 
ship. The populace, who were in full sympathy with 
tehir bishop, were in a high state of excitement. A 
new church was to be dedicated, and they were eager 
for relics with which to enrich it. Then follows the 
unexpected discovery of the remains of two utterly 
forgotten martyrs, Protasius and Gervasius, with fresh 
blood upon them, and able to shake the earth in the 



HEATHEN AND ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 297 

neighborhood where they lay. As they are transported 
through the city, a blind butcher touches the fringe of 
the pall that covers them, and at once receives his 
sight. We are not willing to join with Isaac Taylor in 
imputing to Ambrose himself complicity in a fraud. 
Yet the circumstances connected with the discovery of 
the bodies indicate that fraud and superstitious imagi- 
nation were combined in those who were most active in 
the matter. The blindness of the butcher was not 
congenital. It was a disorder which had obliged him 
to retire from his business. But oculists know well 
that cases of total or partial blindness are sometimes 
instantly relieved. What was the special cause of the 
disorder in this instance ? Had there been symptoms 
of amendment before ? Was the cure complete at the 
moment ? As long as we are unable to answer these 
and like questions, it is unwise to assume that there 
was a miracle. We miss in the accounts, we may add, 
the sobriety of the Gospel narratives. They are sur- 
charged with the florid rhetoric to which we have 
adverted. 

The evidence for most of those post-apostolic miracles 
which are more commonly referred to melts away on 
examination. The miracle of "the thundering legion," 
whose prayers are said to have saved the army of Mar- 
cus Aurelius (A.D. 174), and to have thus turned him 
from his hostility to Christianity, is one of these. But 
no such effect was produced on the emperor's mind, 
since he persecuted the Christians afterwards (A.D. 178). 
The tempest of rain which brought relief to the army, 
the heathen asserted to be the consequence of their 
own prayers to Jupiter. If it was true that a sudden 
shower of the kind described in the story followed 
upon the supplications of the Christian soldiers, we 



298 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

should hardly be justified in pronouncing it a miracle 
in the proper sense of the term. The story of the 
cross with an inscription upon it, seen by Constantino 
in the sky, Eusebius heard from the emperor not until 
twenty-six years after the event, and was not ac- 
quainted with it, when, with the best opportunities for 
informing himself, he wrote his Church History (about 
A.D. 825). That Constantine had a dream in the night 
such as Lactantius describes, is not improbable. It is 
possible that on the day previous, a parhelion, or some 
similar phenomenon, may have seemed to his excited 
and superstitious feeling a cross of light. Under the 
circumstances, and considering the defects in the testi- 
mony, the natural explanation is far the most probable. 
None of the post-apostolic miracles appears to have a 
stronger attestation than that of the breaking-out of 
fire from the foundations of the temple at Jerusalem, 
when the workmen, by the order of the Emperor 
Julian, set about the task of rebuilding that edifice. 
The fact is stated by a contemporary heathen writer 
of good repute, Ammianus Marcellinus. Notwithstand- 
ing the grave historical difficulties which have been 
suggested by Lardner and others, it seems most reason- 
able to conclude that some startling phenomenon of 
the kind actually occurred. Neander says, " A sign 
coming from God is here certainly not to be mistaken, 
although natural causes also co-operated." 1 Guizot, in 
his notes on Gibbon, explains the occurrence by refer- 
ring it to the explosion of the subterranean gases 
suddenly liberated by the workmen. Although the 
admission of a miracle in such a case detracts nothing 
from the peculiar function and evidential force of the 
miracles of Scripture, we cannot feel obliged to call in 

1 Church History, vol. ii. pp. 69, 70. 



HEATHEN AND ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 299 

here supernatural agency. Natural causes of a physical 
nature, together with the fears and fancies of the 
laborers, and the exaggerating imagination of reporters, 
suffice to explain the alarm that was created, and the 
cessation of the work. 

The standing argument at the present day against 
the credibility of the evangelists is the precedent 
afforded by the biographers of " the saints," and of the 
incredible marvels which they mingle with authentic 
history. To some it is no matter of surprise that the 
apostles should be utterly deceived in this branch of 
their testimony. Thus Matthew Arnold boldly admits, 
that, if we had the original reports of eye-witnesses, 
we should not have a miracle less than we have now. 1 
Very different is the judgment of a great historical 
scholar, Niebuhr. He refers to the critical spirit in 
which he had come to the study of the New Testa- 
ment histories and to the imperfections which he be- 
lieved himself to find in them. He adds, "Here, as 
in every historical subject, when I contemplated the 
immeasurable gulf between the narrative and the facts 
narrated, this disturbed me no further. He whose 
earthly life and sorrows were depicted had for me a 
perfectly real existence, and his whole history had the 
same reality, even if it were not related with literal 
exactness in any single point. Hence, also, the funda- 
mental fact of miracles, which, according to my con- 
viction, must be conceded, unless we adopt the not 
merely incomprehensible but absurd hypothesis, that 
the Holiest was a deceiver, and his disciples either 
dupes or liars; and that deceivers had preached a holy 
religion, in which self-renunciation is every thing, and 
1 Contemporary Review, vol. xxvi. p. 697. 



300 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

in which there is nothing tending toward the erection 
of a priestly rule, — nothing that can be acceptable 
to vicious inclinations. As regards a miracle in the 
strictest sense, it really only requires an unprejudiced 
and penetrating study of nature to see that those 
related are as far as possible from absurdity, and a 
comparison with legends, or the pretended miracles cr 
other religions, to perceive by what a different spirit 
they are animated." * 

" To perceive by what a different spirit they are ani- 
mated " — it is just this which Renan fails to see in the 
legends of the saints. It is found impossible to dispute 
the fact, that testimony substantially equivalent to the 
contents of the Gospels was given by the apostles. 
The grand hypothesis of a post-apostolic mythology, 
set up by Strauss, is given up. That the apostles were 
wilful deceivers, if it be sometimes insinuated, is felt to 
be a weak position. This old fortification of unbelief is 
abandoned. What, then, shall be said ? Why, answers 
Renan, they were, like the followers of St. Francis of 
Assisi, credulous, romantic enthusiasts. The frequency 
with which he reverts to the lives of St. Francis in- 
dicates what is the real source and prop of his theory 
in his own mind. It is well to look at this pretended 
parallel more narrowly. 

We have two lives of St. Francis by personal follow- 
ers, — one, by Thomas de Celano ; and another, by the 
" three companions." Another life is from the pen of 
Bonaventura, who was five years old when the saint 
died. 2 The moment one takes up these biographies, he 
finds himself in an atmosphere different from that of 

1 Memoir of Niebuhr (Am. ed.), p. 236. 

2 These lives are in the Acta Sanctorum (ed. nov.), vol. 90, pp. 683- 
798. 



HEATHEN AND ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 301 

nature and real life. He is transported into dream-land. 
Feeling drowns perception. Every thing is suffused 
with emotion. We are in an atmosphere where neither 
discriminating judgment nor cool observation is to be 
looked for. Here is an example of the strain of eulogy 
in which these disciples of St. Francis, intoxicated with 
admiration, indulge : " Oh, how beautiful, how splendid, 
how glorious, he appeared, in innocence of life and in 
simplicity of language, in purity of heart, in delight in 
God, in fraternal love, in odorous obedience, in com- 
plaisant devotedness, in angelic aspect ! Sweet in man- 
ners, placid in nature, affable in speech, most apt in 
exhortation, most faithful in trusts, prudent in counsel, 
efficient in action, gracious in all things, serene in mind, 
sweet in spirit, sober in temper, steadfast in contempla- 
tion, persevering in esteem, and in all things the same, 
swift to show favor, slow to anger," etc. 1 This is only 
one of the outbursts of ecstatic admiration for " the morn- 
ing star," the luminary "more radiant than the sun," 
in which these chroniclers break out. When we turn 
to the saint who is the object of all this fervor, we 
find in his character, to be sure, much to respect. There 
is "sweetness and light;" but the light is by far the 
minor factor. The practice of asceticism rendered his 
bodily state at all times abnormal and unhealthy. To 
lie on the ground, with a log for a pillow ; to deny him- 
self the refreshment of sleep when it was most needed ; 
to choose, on principle, the coarsest food, and to insist 
on its being cooked, if cooked at all, in a way that 
made it as unpalatable and indigestible as possible ; to 
weep every day so copiously that his eyesight was 
nearly destroyed, and then, as always when he was ill, 
to take remedies with great reluctance, if he took them 

1 Acta Sanctorum, ut sup., p. 716. 



302 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

at all — these customs were not favorable to sanity <>f 
mental action any more than to soundness of body. 
They co-existed with attractive virtues ; they sprang 
from pure motives : but they were none the less ex- 
cesses of superstition. Persuaded on one occasion, 
when he was enfeebled by illness, to eat of a fowl, he 
demonstrated his penitence by causing himself to be led, 
with a rope round his neck, like a criminal, through the 
streets of Assisi, by one of his followers, who shouted 
all the time, " Behold the glutton ! " 

The sort of miracles ascribed to St. Francis, and the 
measure of credence which the stories of them deserve, 
may be understood from what is said of his miraculous 
dealing with the lower animals. On a journey, leaving 
his companions in the road, he stepped aside into the 
midst of a concourse of doves, crows, and other birds. 
They were not frightened at his approach. Whereupon 
he delivered to them a sermon, in which he addressed 
them as " my brother-birds," and gave them wholesome 
counsel — supposing them able to comprehend it — re- 
specting their duties to God. But we are assured that 
they did comprehend it, and signified their approbation 
by stretching their necks, opening their mouths, and flap- 
ping their wings. Having received from the saint the 
benediction, and permission to go, this winged congre- 
gation flew away. This is only one in a catalogue of 
wonders of the same kind. Fishes, as well as birds, lis- 
tened to preaching, and waited for the discourse to con- 
clude. We can readily believe Celano, when he says 
that St. Francis was a man of " the utmost fervor," and 
had a feeling "of piety and gentleness towards irrational 
creatures." He was probably one of those who have 
a remarkable power of dispelling the fear, and winning 
the confidence, of animals. Incidents where this natu- 



HEATHEN AND ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 303 

ral power was exercised were magnified, by the fancy 
of devotees, into the tales a sample of which has been 
given. A like discount from other miraculous narra- 
tives resting on the same testimony would reduce the 
events which they relate to the dimensions of natural, 
though it may be remarkable, occurrences. It is need- 
less to recount these alleged miracles. One or two will 
suffice. Travelling together, St. Francis and his fol- 
lowers see in the road a purse, apparently stuffed with 
coins. There was a temptation to pick it up. The 
rule of poverty was in imminent peril. The saint 
warns his curious disciple that the devil is in the purse. 
Finally, the disciple, after prayer, is permitted to touch 
it, when out leaps a serpent, and instantly — mirabile 
dictu! — serpent and purse vanish. When the saint 
came to die, one of his followers beheld his soul, as it 
parted from the body, in appearance like an immense 
luminous star, shedding its radiance over many waters, 
borne upon a white cloud, and ascending straight to 
heaven. 

The great miracle in connection with St. Francis is 
that of the "stigmata," or the marks of the wounds of 
Christ, which the Saviour was thought in a vision to 
have imprinted upon his body. From the hour when a 
vision of the crucified Christ was vouchsafed him, as he 
thought, while he was in prayer before his image, " his 
heart," say the "tres som," was wounded and melted at 
the recollection of the Lord's passion ; so that he carried 
while he lived the wounds — stigmata — of the Lord 
Jesus in his heart. He sought in all ways to be liter- 
ally conformed to the Lord as a sufferer. Fur example, 
remembering that the Virgin had no place where her 
son could lay his head, he would take his food from the 



304 THE GROUNDS OF TIIEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

the ground. It was his constant effort to bring upon 
himself the identical experiences of pain and sorrow 
which befell Christ. Especially did he concentrate his 
thoughts in intense and long-continued meditation on 
the crucifixion. There is a considerable number of 
other instances of stigmata found upon the body, besides 
that of St. Francis. The scientific solution, which has 
high authority in its favor, is, that the phenomenon in 
question is the result of the mental state acting by a 
physiological law upon the body. It is considered to 
be one effect of the mysterious interaction of mind and 
bod} r , the products of which, when body and mind are 
in a morbid condition, are exceptionally remarkable. 

Before leaving our subject, let the reader reflect on 
that one trait of the apostles by which they are distin- 
guished from other witnesses to alleged miracles. It 
is their truthfulness. Men may be devout ; they may be 
capable of exalted emotions ; they may undertake works 
of self-sacrifice, and be revered for their saintly tem- 
pers ; and yet they may lack this one sterling quality 
on which the worth of testimony depends. This defect 
may not be conscious. It may result from a passive, 
uninquiring temper. It may grow out of a habit of 
seeing things in a hazy atmosphere of feeling, in which 
all things are refracted from the right line. But the 
apostles, unlike many devotees of even Christian ages, 
were truthful. Without this habit of seeing and relat- 
ing things as they actually occurred, their writings 
would never have exerted that pure influence which 
has flowed from them. Because they uttered "words 
of truth and soberness," they make those who thor- 
oughly sympathize with the spirit of their writings 
value truth above all things. 



HEATHEN AND ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. 305 

And there is one proof of the truth of the apostles' 
testimony which can be appreciated by the unlearned. 
The character of Jesus as he is depicted in the Gospels 
is too unique to be the result of invention. It is the 
image of a perfection too transcendent to be devised 
by the wit of man. Yet it is perfectly self-consistent, 
and obviously real in all its traits. In him the natural 
and the supernatural, divine authority and human feel- 
ing, the power which gives life to the dead and the 
sympathy which expresses itself in tears, blend in com- 
plete accord. This portrait of Christ in the Gospels is 
evidently drawn from the life. It demonstrates the 
truth of the Gospel history. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY FROM THE CON- 
VERSION OF SAUL OF TARSUS, WITH AN EXAMINA- 
TION OF RENAN'S THEORY OF THAT EVENT. 

No event in the founding of Christianity, which does 
not relate to the life of Jesus himself, is so important 
as the conversion, at a very early day, of that able, 
resolute, and zealous enemy of the Christian cause, 
Saul of Tarsus. No one who looks at his career, or 
weighs the effect of it on the subsequent history of the 
world, will doubt, that, in force of intellect and of char- 
acter, he was one of the greatest men, if not the great- 
est man, of his age. He was not content to confine his 
labors in behalf of Christianity within the borders of 
his own nation. He went forth as a conqueror through 
the Roman Empire, to convert the heathen. He made 
his way to Athens, there to reason with philosophers, 
and preach to the people. He aspired to preach in 
Rome itself, not heeding the contempt that his doctrine 
would excite. He had the courage to face mobs at 
Jerusalem and at Ephesus; to be persecuted by his 
own countrymen as a heretic, and by Gentiles as an 
atheist. No bodily hardship or peril discouraged him. 
No rebuff disheartened him. He had the independence 
to withstand Peter, the leader among the original dis- 
ciples, when he gave way to timidity. No man ever 
afforded more signal proofs of independence of thought 
and of judgment. He was acquainted with the eye- 

306 



THE ARGUMENT FROM THE CONVERSION OF PAUL. 307 

witnesses who had lived with Jesus from the beginning 
of his public ministry. He conferred with them. He 
inquired of them as to what they had seen. Seven 
years after the crucifixion, he spent a fortnight with 
Peter at Jerusalem. He was of the school of the 
Pharisees. All his prepossessions were against the 
claims of Jesus. He embarked in a determined effort 
to crush the Christian cause, yet from a fanatical 
enemy he was transformed to an enthusiastic follower 
and servant of Jesus. The adhesion of so independent 
and thoughtful and inquisitive a man ; of a man having 
access to direct means of information respecting Jesus ; 
of a man who had fixed prejudices to overcome ; of a 
man whose espousal of the Christian cause cost him, 
as he knew it would, all that men generally hold dear ; 
of a man who proved the depth and sincerity of his 
faith by a life full of heroic exertions and sufferings, 
and by a martyr's death, — the adhesion of such a man 
is itself an argument for the verity of the claims 
which Christianity made. Saul of Tarsus, one so quick- 
sighted, and at the same time reflective, was convinced 
of the truth of the gospel. From a zealous foe he 
became an intrepid advocate. Was he deceived? 

The circumstances of his conversion, when, after 
having taken part in the slaying of Stephen, he was on 
the road to Damascus to persecute the disciples of Jesus 
there, are familiar. Unless he was altogether mistaken, 
a miracle occurred; not a miracle that superseded a 
moral decision on his part, for he might have been 
"disobedient unto the heavenly vision," but still a 
miracle. How shall the phenomena which occurred on 
that occasion be otherwise explained? 

We have the naturalistic solution. It was an in- 
stance of hallucination. Renan, combining the ideas of 



308 THE GROUNDS OF TIIEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

Strauss, and of Baur in his earlier treatment of the 
subject, with speculations of his own, has drawn out 
the theory. 1 Paul was on his persecuting journey, his 
brain highly excited, at times violently so. Passionate 
natures fly from one belief to the opposite. When 
at one extreme, they are never far from the other. 
They are almost ready to love what they hate. Was 
he sure that he was not withstanding a work of God ? 2 
The more he knew the good sectaries, the more he 
loved them. At certain moments he seemed to see the 
sweet figure of the Master looking on him with tender 
reproach. Tales of apparitions of Jesus, which the dis- 
ciples had told, occurred to him. He drew near the 
city. The odious role of an executioner became more 
and more insupportable to him. He appears to have 
had inflamed eyes, perhaps incipient ophthalmia. Sud- 
den fevers are an incident of journeys in that region. 
One will be suddenly struck {foudroye), plunged into 
darkness traversed by flashes of light, where he will see 
images traced on the black ground. It is not unlikely 
that there was a thunder-storm. The strongest minds 
are dismayed by the roar of the tempests on the sides 
of Mount Hermon. Jews looked on thunder as the 
voice of God ; on lightning, as the flame of God. Paul 
thought that what he heard in his own heart was the 
voice of the storm. It was a feverish delirium, caused 
by a sunstroke or by ophthalmia. Paul, we know, was 
subject to visions. He now fancied himself to see Jesus, 
and hear his voice. The thought of Stephen flashed 
on him : " he saw himself covered with his blood." All 
that occurred afterwards in connection with Ananias 



1 Les Apotres, p. 175 seq. 

2 A few pages before (p. 172), Renan doubts whether Paul ever knew 
Gamaliel. 



THE ARGUMENT FROM THE CONVERSION OF PAUL. 309 

was another series of hallucinations and delusions. 
Ananias spoke gently to him, laid his hands on him. 
He was calmed. He believed himself healed; "and, 
the malady being entirely nervous, he was." 

This jumble of contradictory guesses, most of which 
are directly belied by the known facts, is called "the 
scientific explanation" of the Apostle Paul's conver- 
sion. It implies throughout that he lacked common 
sense. He mistook the occurrences of a thunder-storm 
for a supernatural address, in articulate speech, to him- 
self. He knew so little of physical disorders (which 
are represented, however, as being very common in 
the region where he was), that he mistook a sunstroke 
for a perception of Christ. The main point to consider, 
and the only point worthy of consideration, in this 
cobweb of conjectures, is whether there was in the 
mind of Paul the psychological condition out of which 
hallucination can naturally spring. Nothing need be 
said of the extraordinary postulate, that strong natures 
— men, be it observed, who are strong in intellect, as 
well as fervent in emotion — are ready at any time to 
jump over to an opposite conviction. A Loyola, we are 
to believe, very easily turns into a Luther; a Crom- 
well, into a Laud ; and it must be a matter of surprise 
that Paul, in the thirty years or more that followed his 
conversion, in which he attacked the Judaizing spirit, 
did not oscillate back again to Pharisaism. 

But did Paul have any of the compunction, any of 
the misgivings and of the hesitation, about the recti- 
tude of the course he was pursuing, which Renan's 
romance ascribes to him? Not only is there not a 
particle of proof that he had, there is decisive proof 
to the contrary. The figure of the "pricks" against 
which it was vain fur him to kick 1 was taken from the 

1 Acts xxvi. 14. 



310 THE GROUNDS OF THEIST1C AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

goad used to spur forward oxen. The meaning is, that 
his opposition to the Christian cause would be of no 
avail. He was forgiven for persecuting, he says, be- 
cause he "did it ignorantly, in unbelief." " I verily 
thought with myself,'" he declares, "that I ought to do 
many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Naza- 
reth." x The notion that he was trying to drown the 
rebukes of conscience is a pure fiction, contradicted by 
Paul's own declarations and by all the facts in the case. 
There was no place, then, for hallucination, an imagi- 
nary sight of the reproving look of Jesus, and a hearing 
of reproaches from his voice. The superstructure falls 
with the foundation on which it is reared. 

But is the occurrence on the road to Damascus to 
be considered "a vision" in the ordinary sense of the 
term in the New Testament ? If it were this, its real- 
ity would not be disproved, unless it were first assumed 
that God could not or would not thus communicate 
with men. There is not even this ground, however, 
for the naturalistic hypothesis to retreat to. It is true 
that Paul, at various times after his conversion, refers 
to visions which he had. But he does not put his con- 
version among them. The vision to which he refers in 
2 Cor. xii. 1-4 occurred six or seven years after his 
conversion. The whole description of this vision, and 
of the ecstatic state in which he was, and of the incom- 
municable things which he heard, shows how dissimilar 
it was from his experience on the road to Damascus. 
A vision (opa/ia) was, and was known to be, something 
quite distinct from an affection of the outward senses. 2 
Moreover, Paul distinguishes the sight which he had 
of Jesus from visions, and ranks it with that direct 
perception of him which the apostles had on different 

1 Acta xxvi. 9. a See Acts xii. 9. 



THE ARGUMENT FROM THE CONVERSION OF PAUL. 311 

occasions after the resurrection. He says, 1 " Last of all 
he was seen of me," etc. That one interview stood 
by itself. It was a conviction of the untenableness of 
the naturalistic solution which led Baur, in his later 
days, to say of Paul, that " neither psychological nor 
dialectical analysis can explore the mystery of the act 
in which God revealed to him his Son." 2 Baur even 
says that in the conversion of Paul, "in his sudden 
transformation from the most vehement adversary into 
the most resolute herald of Christianity, we can see 
nothing short of a miracle (Wunder*)." Keim, an inde- 
pendent representative of the same school, affirms the 
objective reality of the manifestation of Jesus to Paul. 
He appeals to the passage already referred to (1 Cor. 
xv. 8), and the context. " The whole character of 
Paul ; his sharp understanding, which was not weak- 
ened by his enthusiasm; the careful, cautious, measured, 
simple form of his statement ; above all, the favorable 
total impression of his narrative, and the mighty echo 
of it in the unanimous, uncontradicted faith of primi- 
tive Christendom," — are the considerations on which 
Keim rests his belief.* The deeper criticism of the 
Teutonic mind, even when under a naturalistic bias, 
halts at a point where Gallican scepticism does not 
" fear to tread." 

The external miracle is not to be looked at apart 
from the spiritual miracle to which it led, and which 
attended it. There was a transformation of character 
involving a totally new view and interpretation of the 
Old Testament religion. The superficialness of Renan 
in his treatment of these themes is illustrated in his 

i 1 Cor. xv. 8. 

2 Das Christenthum d. drei ersten Jahrhb. (2d ed.), p. 45. 

8 See Suhaff, in The Princeton Review, March, 1883, p. 1G3. 



312 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

dealing with this topic. Paul, he would have us be- 
lieve, was not essentially altered. "Ardent men change, 
but are not transformed." All that he did, was to 
alter the direction of his fanaticism : it was directed 
against another object. How any sober-minded critic 
can read the thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to 
the Corinthians, where the apostle's fervor in the depict- 
ing of love lifts his style to a rhythmical flow, and 
still say that it is the same man who "made havoc" 
of the church, and "breathed out threatenings and 
slaughter,'' it is hard to see. That the apostle's native 
talents and dispositions did not forsake him when a 
new spirit entered into his heart, is, of course, true. 
Along with this moral and spiritual renewal, and as a 
part of it, was a conviction of personal nnworthiness 
and condemnation? Righteousness — a right or justi- 
fied position before God — he saw to be impossible 
under the law-method. The law went too deep : his 
heart and will were too far at variance with its exac- 
tions. Thus he saw that the Old-Testament system 
was only preparatory to the gospel of free forgiveness. 
Baur is right in saying that the perception by Paul that 
the death of Jesus, which was the stumbling-block to 
such as Paul in the way of believing in him as the 
Christ, no longer stood in his way when he saw that 
death was to Jesus the gateway to an exalted life and 
to a spiritual reign. It is also true, that, with this new 
view of the death of Jesus and of his present heavenly 
life and reign, the carnal conception of God's kingdom, 
with all Judaizing theories and prejudices, vanished. 
Christianity was seen to be equally for all. " There is 
no difference between the Jew and the Greek." 1 But 

1 This topic I have considered in the Essays on the Supernatural 
Origin of Christianity, p. 4GG seq. 



THE ARGUMENT FROM THE CONVERSION OF PAUL. 313 

how did Paul arrive at this radically altered view of 
the death of Jesus ? How did he come to look on him 
as having passed into the heavens to reign there? 
How was the prejudice against the idea of a dying Mes- 
siah, which had possessed his whole being, removed? 
This result was accomplished by the revelation to him 
of Jesus in this heavenly exaltation. Thus the turn- 
ing-poin^ was the event on the road to Damascus, 
when, according to his immovable conviction, he saw 
Christ. On this miracle, therefore, the conversion of 
Paul from a fanatical Jew to an ardent and life-long 
apostle of the faith which he had persecuted, hinged. 
Upon this event, all that was noble in his career, all 
that was beneficent in his work as the principal founder 
of Christianity in Europe, all that has flowed from his 
writings and life for the enlightenment of human souls 
and the uplifting of society, depends. Was this event 
a miserable mistake on his part, due to a thunder-clap, 
a sunstroke, or sore eyes? No one who believes in 
God will be satisfied with such a solution. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY FROM PROPHECY, 
WITH COMMENTS ON THE THEORY OF KUENEN. 

It appears to be thought by many at present, that the 
argument for Christian revelation from prophecy is of 
little weight. In treatises on Christian evidences, it 
has fallen into the background, or has disappeared alto- 
gether. By some it would seem to be considered an 
objection, rather than a support, to the Christian cause. 
This impression, which has arisen in part from wrong 
methods of interpretation that were formerly in vogue, 
has no real foundation. On the contrary, prophecy, 
looked at in the light of a more scientific exegesis and 
a larger conception of the nature of prophetic inspira- 
tion, furnishes a striking and powerful argument for 
revelation. 

One thing which modern theologians have learned 
respecting Hebrew prophecy is, that prediction was not 
the exclusive, or even the principal, constituent in the 
prophet's function. The prophets were raised up to 
instruct, rebuke, warn, and comfort the Israel of their 
own day. They dealt with the exigencies and obliga- 
tions of the hour. They were the spokesmen of God, 
speaking to the people by his commission, and through 
his Spirit inspiring them. Prediction was involved, both 
as to the near and the distant future. But, as we see 
from the case of the prophets of the New Testament 



THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 315 

church (1 Cor. xiv. 24, 31), foretelling was not the 
essential thing. The prophet was an inspired preacher. 

Another change in the modern view of prophecy is 
in the perception of the limitations to which the proph- 
ets were subject, as to the extent and the form of their 
vaticinations. Allegorical interpretation, in the form, 
for example, which ascribed to the language of the 
prophets a double or multiple sense of which they were 
conscious, or in the form which laid into their words a 
meaning at variance with their natural import, is now 
set aside. There is a broader view taken of the matter. 
The distinction between the inmost idea, the underly- 
ing truth, and the form in which it is conceived, or the 
imagery under which it is beheld, by the seer, is recog- 
nized. The central conception of the organic relation 
of the religion of the Old Testament to that of the New, 
the first being rudimental in its whole character, and 
thus in its very nature predictive, — just as a devel- 
oped organism is foreshadowed in its lower forms or 
stages, — illuminates the whole subject. It suggests 
the limitations of view which must of necessity inhere 
in prophetical anticipation, even though it be super- 
natural in its origin. 

Prediction, in order to prove revelation, must be 
shown to be truly pre-diction, — that is, to have been 
uttered prior to the event to which it relates. On this 
point, as regards the Old-Testament prophecies, there 
is no room for reasonable doubt. 1 The predictions must 
be shown not to spring from native sagacity or wise fore- 
cast, based on natural causes known to be in operation. 
And they must be verified to an extent not to be ex- 

1 As the date of tlie Book of Daniel is a controverted point, we leave 
out of the account its predictions as far as they relate to events prior to 
the Maccabcan age. 



316 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

plained either by the supposition of accidental coinci- 
dence, or by supposing the effect to be wrought by the 
influence of the predictions themselves. 

If we glance at the prophets as they present them- 
selves to our view on the pages of the Old Testament, 
we shall be helped to judge whether their predictions 
can endure the test of these criteria. 1 

A man was not made a prophet by virtue of any nat- 
ural talents that he possessed, or any acquired knowl- 
edge. He might, to be sure, be a great poet ; but this 
of itself did not make him a prophet. The prophets, 
it is true, were not cut off from a living relation to 
their times. They did not appear as visitors from 
another planet. But what the prophet had learned, 
whether in "the schools of the prophets" (when such 
existed, and if he belonged to them), or from the study 
of the law, and of other prophets who preceded him, 
did not furnish him with the message which he deliv- 
ered. He was not like the rabbi or scribe of a later 
day. 2 He did not take up his office of his own will. 
So far from this, he is conscious of being called of God 
by an inward call which he can not and dare not resist. 
The splendid passage in which Isaiah recurs to the 
vision in the temple, when " the foundations of the 
thresholds shook," and the Voice was heard to say, 
"Whom shall I send?" shows the awe-inspiring charac- 
ter of the divine call which set the prophet apart for 
his work (Isa. vi.). The true prophet is conscious of 
being called to declare, not the results of his own inves- 

i Cf. Oehler, Theologie d. Alt. Test., vol. ii. p. 170 seq.; Bleek, Einl. 
in d. Alt. Test. (Wellhausen's ed.),p. 305 seq.; Scbultz, Alt. Test. Theo- 
logie, p. 187 seq. ; Ewald, Prophets of the Old Test. (Engl, transl., Loud., 
1S75), vol. i.; Riehm, Messianic Prophecy; Oehler's Arts. (Prophetis- 
nius Messias, Weissgung, etc.) in Herzog's Real-Encykl. 

- Oehler, p. 170. 



THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 817 

tigations or reflections, but the counsels and will of the 
Most High. He utters the word of God. It may be a 
message that runs counter to his own preference, that 
excites the deepest grief in his soul, that overcomes 
him with surprise or terror ; but he cannot keep silent. 
So conscious is he that he is not speaking out of his 
own heart, as do the false prophets, that at times he no 
longer speaks in propria persona as the deputy of God : 
God himself speaks, in the first person, by his lips. 
Yet as a rule, and especially in the later and higher 
stages of prophecy, the state of the prophet is not that 
of ecstasy. He is in full possession of reason and con- 
sciousness. He distinguishes between his own thoughts 
and words and the word of God. There is no bewil- 
derment. The truth which he pours forth from a soul 
exalted, yet not confused, by emotion, is not something 
reasoned out. It is an immediate perception or intui- 
tion. He is a seer : he hears or beholds that which his 
tongue declares. The intuition of the prophet cannot 
be resolved into a natural power of divination. What 
power of divination could look forward to the far re- 
mote consummation of the workings of Providence in 
history? The prophets give utterance to no instinctive 
presage of national feeling. Commonly their predic- 
tions are in the teeth of the cherished aspirations of the 
people. 1 

The prophets predicted events which human foresight 
could not anticipate. Yet there is no such correspond- 
ence between prediction and fulfilment, that history is 
written in detail in advance of the actual occurrences. 
There is no such identity as to disturb the action of 
human free-will, as it would be deranged if every thing 
that man were to do and to suffer in the future were 

i Oehler, p. 19G. 



318 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

mapped out before his eyes. Moreover, the conditions 
under which the ideas given to the prophet necessarily 
shape themselves in his thought and imagination — 
which may be called the human side of prophecy — 
give rise to a greater or less disparity between the 
mode of the prediction and the mode of fulfilment. 
This will constitute an objection to the reality of proph- 
ecy, only to those who cannot break through the shell, 
and penetrate to the kernel within it. On this topic 
Ewald writes as follows : — 

" A projected picture of the future is essentially a presentiment, 
a surmise ; i.e., an attempt and effort of the peering spirit to form 
from the basis of a certain truth a definite idea of the form the 
future will take, and to pierce through the veil of the unseen : it 
is not a description of the future with those strict historical lines 
which will characterize it when it actually unfolds itself. The 
presentiment or foreboding advances at once to the general scope 
and great issue. Before the prophet who is justly foreboding evil, 
there rises immediately the vision of destruction as the final pun- 
ishment; but probably this does not come to pass immediately, or 
only partially; and yet the essential truth of the threat remains as 
long as the sins which provoked it continue, whether it be executed 
sooner or later. Or when the gaze of the prophet, eager from 
joyous hope or sacred longing, dwells on the consideration of the 
so-called Messianic age, this hovers before him as coming soon and 
quickly ; what he clearly sees appearing to him as near at hand. 
But the development of events shows how many hinderances still 
stand in the way of the longed-for and surmised consummation, 
which again and again vanishes from the face of the present: 
nevertheless, the pure truth that the consummation will come, and 
must come precisely under the conditions foretold by the prophet, 
remains unchangeably the same ; it retains its force during every 
new period, and from time to time some part of the great hope 
finds its fulfilment. Further : the presentiment endeavors to deline- 
ate its subject-matter with the greatest clearness and definiteness, 
and, in order to describe really unseen things, borrows the compari- 
sons and illustrations that are at hand from the past and popular 
ideas. To set forth the presentiment of evil, there occurs the 



THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 319 

memory of Sodom, or all the terrible things of nature ; whilst for 
bright hope and aspiration, there is the memory of Mosaic and 
Davidic times. But the prophet does not really intend to say that 
only the things that occurred in Sodom, and under Moses and 
David, will recur, or that mere earthquakes and tempests will 
happen; but, using these comparisons, he means something far 
higher." 1 

The prophet, beholding things future as if present, 
may leap over long intervals of time. Events may 
appear to him near at hand which are really distant. 
Thus, in Isaiah, the Messianic era follows immediately 
on the liberation of the Israelites from captivity. 
Round numbers may be used, — numbers having only 
a symbolical significance. 2 Events may be grouped ac- 
cording to the causal rather than the temporal relation 
between them. 

On this matter of chronology, Ewald has suggestive 
remarks : — 

" The prophetic presentiment, finally, endeavoring in certain 
distressing situations to peer still more closely into the future, ven- 
tures even to fix terms and periods for the development of the 
events which are foreseen as certain ; yet all these more definite 
limitations and calculations are so many essays of a peculiar class, 
to be conceived of and judged by their own nature and from the 
motive that produced them, to say nothing of the fact that every 
thing that the prophet threatens or promises is conditioned by the 
reception which his advice and command, indeed, which his sup- 
pressed yet necessary and of themselves clear presuppositions, meet 
with. Accordingly, the prophetic picture in the end is not to be 
judged by its garments, but by the meaning of the thoughts and 
demands which is hidden within it; and it would be a source of 
constant misconception to conceive of and judge picture and pre- 
sentiment otherwise than in accordance with their own peculiar 
life and nature. Jerusalem was not destroyed so soon as Mi call 
(ch. i.-iii.) foreboded : nevertheless, inasmuch as the same causes 

i Ewald's Prophets of the Old Testament, vol. i. p. 36. 
2 Oehler, p. 205. 



320 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

■which provoked that presentiment were not radically removed, the 
destmction did not ultimately fail to come. Literally, Jerusalem 
was neither besieged nor delivered exactly as Isaiah (ch. xxix.) 
foresaw : still, as he had foreseen, the city was exposed during his 
lifetime to the greatest danger, and experienced essentially as 
wonderful a deliverance. In the calculations (Isa. xxxii. 14 seq., 
comp. v. 10, xxix. 1-8, and especially v. 17), if the words are taken 
slavishly, there lies a minor contradiction, which, with a freer com- 
parison of all the pictures as they might exist before the mind of 
the prophet, it is granted, quickly disappears. The punishment of 
Israel (Hos. ii.) consists in expulsion into the wilderness; (ch. iii. 
seq.) it consists rather in other things, e.g., in being driven away 
to Assyria and Egypt. Yet all these presentiments were equally 
possible, and contain no contradiction, unless they are confounded 
with historical assertions or even express commands. As appears 
from Jer. xxvi. 1-19, at this period of Jewish history a correct 
feeling of the true meaning of prophetic utterances in this respect 
was still in existence, and they were not so misunderstood as they 
were in the middle ages, and as they still are in many quarters." 1 

Closely related to the partial indifference to mere 
chronological relations which is seen, for example, 
in what is termed "the perspective of prophecy," is 
another feature, — that of the gradual fulfilment, the 
preliminary and the completed verification, of predic- 
tions. Glowing ideals stir the soul of the prophet. 
The realization of them he may connect with personages 
already living or soon to appear, and with conditions 
with which he is conversant. In the ways anticipated 
by him they have in truth a verification, but one that 
falls far short of the prophetic vision. The accordance 
is real, but only up to a certain point : the discordance 
is too great to be removed by treating the prediction 
as an hyperbole. Hence the full verification is still 
looked for; and it comes. The development of the 
religion of Israel brings in the complete realization 
i Ewald, p. 37. 



THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 321 

of the grand idea which floated before the prophet's 
mind. This is not a novel theory of prophecy, pecul- 
iar to our day. Lord Bacon speaks of " that latitude 
which is agreeable and familiar unto divine prophecies ; 
being of the nature of their author, with whom a thou- 
sand years are but as one day ; and are therefore not 
fulfilled punctually at once, but have springing and 
germinant accomplishment throughout many ages, though 
the height or fulness of them may refer to some one 
age." 1 The mind of the seer or psalmist was illuminat- 
ed, so that the plan of Jehovah in the ordering of the 
past course of Israel's history, and the real import of 
the present conjunction of circumstances, were unveiled 
to his mind. From this point of view, he glanced for- 
ward, and, illuminated still by the Spirit of God, he 
beheld the future unfold itself, — not, to be sure, as to 
the eye of the Omniscient, but under the limitations 
imposed by finite powers acting within a restricted en- 
vironment. For prophetic inspiration is no operation 
of magic. An apostle represents the prophets as 
seeking earnestly to get at the meaning of their own 
prophecies, — " searching what, or what manner of time, 
the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify," 
etc. 2 

The Old-Testament prophecies fall into two classes. 
The first embraces the predictions of a Messianic char- 
acter, especially those relating to the kingdom and the 
spread of it. The second includes prophecies of par- 
ticular occurrences. 

We begin with the first class of predictions. The 
prophets look forward to a great salvation in the future, 
a period of rest and blessedness for the people. 3 Some- 

i The Advancement of Learning, b. ii. (Spelling's cd., vi. 200). 
2 1 Pet. i. 11. 8 Cf. Bleek, p. 329. 



322 THE GROUNDS OF TIIEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

times this redemption is depicted as a great triumph 
over all the enemies of Israel, when the state appears 
in unexampled glory and splendor ; the land yielding 
abundant fruits, and all divine blessings being showered 
upon its inhabitants. In other prophecies the predomi- 
nant feature is the moral : it is the forgiveness of 
sin, the prevalence of holiness and righteousness, on 
which the eye is fixed. Sometimes the great redemp- 
tion is foreseen as a gift to the seed of Abraham, the 
nation of Israel. But in other places the prophets 
take a wider view, and describe the heathen nations as 
sharing in the blessing, and the kingdom as extending 
over the whole earth. Now the Redeemer is Jehovah 
himself; now the hope centres in a particular mon- 
arch, or on a class by whom the grand deliverance is to 
be achieved ; and again it is a person to appear in 
the future, a ruler of the family of David. The house 
of David is chosen to carry the kingdom to its con- 
summation : it stands in the relation of sonship to 
God. Then there is a limitation : the great promise is 
to be realized from among the sons of David. Finally, 
the prophetic eye fastens its gaze upon an individual in 
the dim future ; as in Ps. ii., where the whole earth 
owns the sway of the king, who is the Son of God ; in 
Ps. lxxii., where the coming and universal sway of 
the Prince of peace, and the succor afforded by him to 
the needy and distressed, are described ; and in Ps. ex., 
in which the conqueror of the earth unites with the 
kingly office that of an everlasting priesthood, — 
a priesthood not of the Levitical order. 1 Elsewhere 
(Isa. liii.) the great deliverance is expected through a 
suffering "servant of Jehovah," who dies not for his 
own sins, but for the sins of the people. First, the 

i Cf. Oekler, ii. 258. 



THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 323 

" servant of Jehovah " is spoken of as Israel collec- 
tively taken, then as the holy and faithful class among 
the people ; and finally, in this remarkable chapter, 
there is, not improbably, a farther step in individual- 
izing the conception : and a single personage, in whom 
all the qualities of the ideal "servant" combine in a 
faultless image, rises before the mind of the seer. 

This glimpse of the most general outlines of Old- 
Testament prophecy cannot but deeply impress one 
who has any just appreciation of the religion of Jesus 
Christ, and of Christendom even as it now is, to say 
nothing of what may, not unreasonably, be expected in 
the future. Under these different phases of prediction, 
there is one grand expectation, viz., that the religion of 
Israel will itself be perfected, and will prevail on the 
earth. Follow back the course of prophecy, and you 
find traces of this expectation — either sublime in the 
extreme, or foolhardy in the extreme, as the event 
should prove — in the earliest records of Hebrew his- 
tory. Concede all that, with any show of reason, can 
be said about the variety in the ideals and anticipations 
of the Hebrew prophets, there remains enough of corre- 
spondence to them in the origin, character, and progress 
of Christianity, to suggest a problem not easy to be 
solved on any naturalistic hypothesis. Grant that the 
prophets had an intense conviction of the reality of 
Jehovah, of his power, and of his right to rule. This 
conviction, be it remembered^ is itself to be accounted 
for ; but, taking this for granted, we find in it no ade- 
quate means of explaining the confident declaration, 
that " the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of 
the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." 1 
Why should they not have stopped with the anticipa- 

i Hab. ii. 14; cf. Oehler, ii. 196. 



324 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

tion of the downfall and destruction of the Pagan 
nations? How could they tell that from Judsea a uni- 
versal kingdom should take its rise ? J How could they 
overcome the obstacles to such an anticipation which 
the actual course of history, as it was going forward 
under their eyes, appeared to involve ? 

Let the reader imagine, that, twenty-five or thirty 
centuries ago, the mountain cantons of Switzerland 
were inhabited by tribes insignificant in numbers and 
strength, while extensive and powerful empires, like 
ancient Rome after the conquest of Carthage and the 
East, or modern Russia, are on their borders. Suppose 
that the people thus imagined to exist had a religion 
unique, and distinct from that of all other nations. Yet 
even in times when their little territory is ravaged by 
vast armies, and the bulk of its population dragged 
off into slavery, there arise among them men, who, with 
all the energy of confidence of which the human mind 
is capable, declare that their religion will become uni- 
versal, that it will supersede the gorgeous idolatries of 
their conquerors, that from them will emerge a kingdom 
which will overcome, and purify as it conquers, all the 
other kingdoms of the world. And suppose, further, 
that actually, after the lapse of centuries, from that 
diminutive, despised tribe of shepherds and herdsmen, 
there does spring a development of religion which 
spreads, until it already comprehends all the nations 
that now profess Christianity; there does spring a 
Legislator and Guide of men, whose spiritual sway is 
acknowledged by hundreds of millions, and to the 
progress of whose reign no limit can be set : would not 
the correspondence, or the degree of correspondence, 
between those far-off predictions and the subsequent 

i Dan. vii. 27. 



THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 325 

phenomena, be a fact which is nothing short of a 
miracle ? 

The second class of prophecies pertain to particular 
occurrences. In inquiring whether they were fulfilled, 
we have to consider the obscurity, which, notwithstand- 
ing recent discoveries in archaeology, still belongs to 
the annals of the nations contemporary with Israel. 
We have to consider, moreover, that predictions of this 
sort were never absolute, in the sense that God might 
not revoke a sentence in case repentance should inter- 
vene. The Book of Jonah — be it history or parable — 
is designed partly to dispel the error that a verdict of 
God, because once announced, is irreversible. The 
prophets entreat that their own predictions may not be 
fulfilled, and their prayers sometimes avail. Neverthe- 
less, the instances of the actual verification of prophe- 
cies of this kind, which could not have sprung from 
any mere human calculation and foresight, are so nu- 
merous, and of so marked a character, that the reality 
of a divine illumination of the prophet's mind cannot 
rationally be denied. 1 Such an instance is the prophe- 
cies of Isaiah respecting the rapidly approaching down- 
fall of the kingdoms of Israel and Syria, which had 
cemented an alliance with each other, and of the fail- 
ure of their project against Judah. 2 Another instance 
is Isaiah's prophecy of the failure of the powerful 
army of the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, in his siege 
of Jerusalem. 3 Other examples are afforded by the 
definite predictions of Jeremiah respecting the return 
of the people from the exile. Such prophecies cannot 
be referred to any shrewd forecast on the part of the 
seers who uttered them. When, for example, the Syro- 
Israelitish alliance menaced Judah and Jerusalem, the 

1 See Bleek, p. 32G. - Isa. vii. 8 Isa. xxxvii. 21 seq. 



326 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

peril was imminent, else it would not have been true of 
Ahab and of his subjects, that " his heart shook, and 
the heart of his people, as the trees of the forest shake 
before the wind." * Apart from the impossibility of 
foretelling such events, the naturalistic explanation 
presupposes a mental state in the authors of the 
prophecies, which is quite diverse from the fact. 

Dr. Kuenen's work on prophecy is an elaborate effort 
to eliminate the supernatural from the Old-Testament 
predictions. These he attributes exclusively to natural 
causes. In sustaining his thesis, he seeks to show that 
the prophecies have failed of a fulfilment, to such an 
extent as to preclude the supposition that they were 
the product of revelation. To this end, as regards the 
general prophecies, — the first class of predictions in the 
enumeration above, — he not only insists on attaching 
a literal sense to passages which point to the perpetual 
continuance of the nation of Israel, the final restora- 
tion of the Jews, the subjugation of their enemies, and 
the like ; but he refuses to consider these features of 
prophecy, which the event has not literally verified, as 
limitations in the perception of the prophet, not incon- 
sistent with his inspiration. In other words, he allows 
no medium between a stiff supernaturalism, which as- 
cribes exact verity to the form of the prophet's vaticina- 
tion, and a bald theory of naturalism. This position is 
unphilosophical. It overlooks the fact, that the vehicle 
of revelation is human, and fettered, to a degree, by 
natural conditions which the inspiring Spirit does not 
sweep away. To break through these limitations 
altogether would be to substitute a dictation at once 
magical and incomprehensible for a divine illumination 
adapted to the mental condition and the environment 

1 Isa. vii. 2. 



THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 327 

of the recipient of it. The prophet Jeremiah (ch. 
xxxiii. 18), in a memorable passage, foresees a momen- 
tous change and advance in the religion of Israel. A 
" new covenant " is to be made with " the house of 
Judah," — so radical is this change to be ! The law is 
to be written in their hearts, that is, the law is to be con- 
verted into an inward principle ; and there is to be a 
forgiveness of sin : " I will remember their sin no more." 
These cardinal features of the new dispensation, which 
Christianity, ages afterward, was to bring in, are thus 
summarily set forth in this wonderful prediction. Yet 
the same Jeremiah says, that "a man shall never be 
wanting to sit on the throne of David, nor Levites to 
offer sacrifice on the altar." 1 " The Jew," says Dr. 
Payne Smith " could only use such symbols as he pos- 
sessed, and, in describing the perfectness of the Chris- 
tian Church, was compelled to represent it as the state 
of things under which he lived, freed from all imperfec- 
tions." 2 In the last chapter of the Book of Isaiah 3 the 
prophet describes in an exulting strain the glorious 
days, when there shall be, as it were, new heavens and 
a new earth; when priests and levites shall be taken 
even from the Gentiles ; when the old forms of worship, 
with the exception of the new moon and the sabbath, 
shall have passed away; and when "all flesh" shall 
worship before Jehovah. Yet here Jerusalem is con- 
ceived of as supreme, and the centre of worship. To 
break away absolutely from this conception, inconsistent 
though it be with the union of " all flesh " in the adora- 
tion of God, would have been to ascend to a point of 
view higher even than that which the apostles had at- 
tained for years after they began their ministry. Yet 

1 Jer. xxxiii. 18. 2 Speaker's Commentary, in loco. 

s Isa. lxvi. 20-2I'., cf. lxii. 2, lxv. 15. 



328 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

in these cases, according to Dr. Kuenen's method of 
viewing prophecy, the circumstance that the prophet 
failed to see the future in form and detail proves that 
what he did see was through his own unaided vision. 
This procedure implies an exclusion of the natural 
factor from revelation and inspiration, and is of a piece 
with one-sided conceptions of the supernatural in the 
Scriptures, which modern theology has set aside, or 
which are clung to only by rigid adherents of an 
obsolescent system. 

With reference to prophecies of particular events, — 
the second class of predictions, — Dr. Kuenen is dis- 
posed to bind the prophets too closely to the letter of 
their predictions; for example, in what they say of 
times and seasons. He does not allow sufficient weight 
to the conditional character that belongs to this species 
of prediction where retributive inflictions are concerned. 
Even if he could succeed in showing, that, in certain 
cases, prophecy failed of its accomplishment, he would 
not establish his main proposition, unless he could 
prove that the cases where the prediction proved true 
may be considered the result of accident, or the prod- 
uct of natural foresight. A marksman may hit a target 
often enough to exclude the hypothesis of accident, even 
if he miss it occasionally. If he thus hits the mark 
when he is known to be blind, or when the target is 
out of sight, a miraculous guidance of the arrow must 
necessarily be assumed. But exceptions to the corre- 
spondence of event with prediction are not easily made 
out. The progress of historical research has removed 
difficulties in regard to passages that were once thought 
to have remained unverified ; the passage, for example, 
in Isaiah, predicting the conquest of Tyre. 1 

1 See Cheyne's The Prophecies of Isaiah, i. 132. 



THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 329 

One of Kuenen's main positions is, that the canoni- 
cal prophets are not separated by a broad and distinct 
line from the "false prophets." He avers that they 
are all of a class ; the only difference being a superior 
degree of moral earnestness, and a deeper piety on the 
part of a few. His theory is like that entertained by 
Grote respecting the relation of Socrates and Plato to 
the Sophists. But Grote's view of the Sophists breaks 
down under his own concessions that Socrates and 
Plato were great reformers ; working, not, like other 
teachers, for hire, but from a nobler impulse. Socrates 
and Plato differed from Protagoras and his followers in 
their principles, method, and spirit. But the disparity 
between the true and the false prophets was of a differ- 
ent kind, and more radical still. That among those 
who are denounced as " false prophets " were indivi- 
duals not conscious of an evil intent, or actuated by 
a fraudulent purpose, may be true. This is all the 
truth that is contained in Kuenen's peculiar view. 
The refutation of his opinion is furnished in the state- 
ments of K older, which Kuenen himself quotes. There 
was a set of "false prophets," — "lying prophets" as 
they were called by the prophets of the canon. Those 
pretended prophets spoke, not by the command of 
Jehovah, but out of their own hearts. It was from 
no irresistible impulse from within that they uttered 
their smooth words. They flattered the vain hopes 
of kings and people. They cry " Peace ! " " Peace ! " 
when there is no peace. They do not disturb the 
people in their indolent self-indulgence. Frequently 
they are instigated by covetousness and greed of gain. 
Against this whole class the true prophets carry on a 
perpetual warfare. Unless these were guilty of gross 
slander and intolerance, magnifying differences of judg- 



330 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

ment into flagrant sins, Dr. Kuenen's view of the sub- 
ject is erroneous. On the one side stood the "false 
prophets " and the people whom they deceived. But 
the true prophets generally faced a resisting and per- 
secuting public opinion. " Who hath believed our 
preaching ? " is their sad and indignant complaint. 
Dr. Kuenen's theory is contradicted by the psycho- 
logical facts connected with the utterance of the 
prophetic oracles. Was the inward call of the true 
prophet — that overwhelming influence upon the soul, 
when the mighty hand of God was laid upon him — 
a delusion? And how shall it be explained that the 
prophet was often dismayed by the glimpses of the 
future that burst upon his vision, that he strove to turn 
away from the prospect, that he was driven to foretell 
what he himself dreaded, and begged God to avert? 
Shall these extraordinary experiences of the soul, so 
exceptional in their character, so powerful in their 
effect, be deemed a morbid excitement? or resolved 
into a mere play of natural emotion ? 

Dr. Kuenen says that " the canonical prophets have 
struggled forward in advance of their nation and of 
their own fellow-prophets." 1 " Struggled forward ? " 
Dr. Kuenen professes to be a theist. Why should he 
apparently shut out the influence of the Spirit of God ? 
Why not, even on his own theory of an uplifting of 
a portion of a class above their fellows, attribute this 
phenomenon, which no discerning man can fail to 
regard as amazing, to a special unction from above? 
It may be allowed that there were natural qualifica- 
tions which led to the choice of a prophet. His mental 
and spiritual characteristics fitted him to be the recipi- 
ent of the divine influence. But to exclude or depre- 
i P. 582. 



THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 331 

ciate this divine influence appears more congruous with 
the Pelagian conceptions of deism than with a theism 
which recognizes God as immanent, and ever active in 
the realm of the finite. Ewald has pointed out in a 
striking way the habit of the prophet to distinguish 
between what was given him and what he produced of 
himself, — a peculiarity which disproves the natural- 
istic hypothesis, unless one is prepared to consider 
the prophet a half-insane enthusiast. It is not to be 
thought, observes Ewald, that because, in passages, the 
prophet's " own I disappears in the presence of another 
/," he " really forgets himself, and begins to speak with- 
out self-consciousness, or ends in unconsciousness and 
frenzy." "Neither has his introduction of God, as 
speaking in the first person, sunk into a crystallized 
and idle habit." " But the prophet always starts from 
his own experience to announce what he has already 
seen in the spirit, and again ends with his own expe- 
rience. Nor in the course of his utterance does he ever 
lose the consciousness of the fine boundary-lines between 
the divine and the human." 1 

There were criteria for distinguishing the true prophet 
from the spurious. The prophet might work a miracle ; 
but even this was no absolute proof, since the pretended 
prophet might at least seem to do the same. Nor was 
the correspondence of the event to the prediction a sure 
evidence of genuine prophecy. 2 But in the genuine 
prophet there was a sympathy in the depths of the soul 
with Jehovah and his law, and with the purpose of God 
in the course of history, the goal of which he saw in 
the far future. There was a power and majesty in the 
true prophets, which nothing but the presence of God's 
spirit could impart to them. " When the spirit of 

i The Prophets, etc., p. 41. 2 Deut. xiii. 1 aeq. 



332 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

God lays hold of them, and compels them to speak, 
they demand obedience to their mere word. And as, 
in spite of all murmuring, the congregation of Israel in 
the main followed Moses, so neither the bitter hatred 
of the idolatrous party in Samaria, nor the vacillation 
of the king, could cripple the influence of Elijah and 
Elisha. 1 So Saul at the head of his victorious army 
dared not withstand the word of Samuel. 2 So Eli 
bowed himself to the divine message ; 3 and David, in 
the midst of all his glory, endured the rebuke of 
Nathan. 4 Without weapons, without the prestige de- 
rived from priestly consecration, without learning and 
human wisdom, the prophets demand obedience, and are 
conscious of the influence which they can exert over 
the men of power in the nation." 5 "A true prophet 
of God, by his prayers and his knowledge of God's will, 
by the warnings that he utters against perils and false 
enterprises, is ' the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen 
thereof ; ' that is, like a shielding host of armed men." 
" On the other hand, their persons are so consecrated to 
God that it can naturally seem dangerous for simple 
mortals to come into near contact with these men of 
God, who may bring their guilt to their remembrance." 6 
Underlying Dr. Kuenen's views of prophecy, as was 
before hinted, is a deistic mode of thought. There is 
a reluctance to admit a direct agency of God in con- 
nection with spiritual phenomena of the most unique 
and impressive character. Pie allows an immediate act 
of God in connection with the separation of Abraham 
and the training of Moses. 7 The Deity, in his system, 

1 1 Kings xxi. 20 seq., 27 seq.; 2 Kings iii. 13 seq. 

2 1 Sam. xv. 21. 3 1 Sam. ii. 27 seq. 
4 2 Sam. xii. 13 seq., cf. xxiv. 11 seq. 5 2 Kings iv. 13. 

6 1 Kings xvii. 18, 24; 2 Kings iv. 'J ; Luke v. 8. Scbultz, p. 221. 

7 Kuenen, The Prophets and Prophecy in Israel, p. 579. 



THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 333 

if he comes in at all, comes in as a deus ex machina. 
Hence he finds it difficult to conceive of grades of inspi- 
ration, of degrees in the agency of the supernatural, of 
lower and higher stages in prophetic illumination. The 
supposed difficulty of drawing a sharp line between 
natural divination and soothsaying, and the earliest phe- 
nomena of Hebrew prophecy, moves him to conclude 
that the latter, even in its grandest manifestations, 
springs wholly from the unassisted faculties of man, — 
which is like inferring, from the fact that we cannot fix 
the exact point when a boy becomes a man, that no 
man exists, or that all men are boys. There is a latent 
postulate of a great gulf between the natural and the 
supernatural. 

As a part of this deistic mode of view, the work of 
the prophets is confined to the origination of "an ethi- 
cal monotheism." The New-Testament system is the 
completion of this work. Redemption, the hope of 
the prophets, the hope realized in Christ, is left out in this 
description of the religion of the Bible. To one who 
adopts this interpretation of the significance of the work 
of Christ, the links of connection between the religion 
of the Old Testament and the religion of the New, 
which the apostles perceived to exist, must appear un- 
real. Hence the exposition of the Old-Testament sys- 
tem by the New-Testament writers, their recognition of 
the typical character of the Old-Testament institutions 
and rites, and their explanation of the prophecies, must 
seem to be a house built on the sand. First, there is a 
narrow conception of prophecy, in which phraseology 
and form are put on a level with the grand, living ideas 
which they embody. Next, there is a narrow concep- 
tion of Christianity as merely or cbieily a doctrine of 
ethical monotheism. Lastly, by way of corollary, the 



334 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

prophets did not prophesy, and are made by the apostles 
to prophesy only through a groundless and fanciful 
understanding of their writings. 

There are prophecies in the New Testament as well 
as in the Old. The general predictions relative to the 
perpetuity, extension, and transforming influence of 
the gospel, when one compares the circumstances under 
which they were uttered with the subsequent history 
of Christianity down to the present day, discover a 
knowledge more than human. The words of Jesus to 
the disciple Peter, " On this rock I build my church, 
and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it," 
are a declaration,- that, on the basis of belief in him as 
the Messenger and Son of God, a community was aris- 
ing which no power could destroy. Consider who this 
Peter was to whom Jesus spoke, who Jesus was, as 
regards outward condition and resources, and the insig- 
nificance of his following, and then glance at the Chris- 
tian Church, advancing from its obscure beginnings to 
victory over Judaic and Pagan opposition and to its 
present commanding place in human society ! The 
prediction that the gospel would be like leaven in the 
world of mankind, like the smallest of seeds, evolving 
from itself a lofty and spreading tree — who, not pos- 
sessed of a discernment more than human, could have 
then foreseen that such an effect was to follow ? Then 
there are particular predictions, of which the prophecy 
of the destruction of Jerusalem is, perhaps, the most 
remarkable. The sagacity of man might have judged 
that a desperate conflict was likely to break out between 
the Romans and the Jews, but who could have pre- 
dicted with any assurance that city and temple would 
be reduced to a ruin? With this prediction, one should 
connect, in his recollection, the prophecy that the vine- 



THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 335 

yard would be given out to other husbandmen, that the 
treasure of God's best gifts would pass into the custody 
of the Gentiles. The Founder looked forward to the 
death of Judaism and the birth of Christendom ! It is 
not to be overlooked that the prophecies which are re- 
ferred to, like prophecies in general, are not pronounced 
as results of calculation, as probabilities founded on the 
examination of evidence on the one side and on the 
other. They are uttered in that tone of absolute con- 
fidence which belongs to an assured insight. It is the 
penetrating glance into the future of one to whom 
the counsels of omniscience have been supernaturally 
revealed. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY FROM ITS ADAPTED- 

NESS TO THE NECESSITIES OF HUMAN NATURE. 

Every religion has to submit to a practical test. It 
verifies or disproves itself by the way in which it an- 
swers to the spiritual nature and wants of man. Chris- 
tianity does not come forward as a new philosophy 
having for its primary end the solution of speculative 
problems. It claims, to be sure, to be in accord with 
reason. It claims to rest upon a truly rational concep- 
tion of that universal system of which man is a compo- 
nent part. But it also bases its title to confidence on 
more practical grounds. It appeals immediately to the 
conscience and the affections. It calls for a rectifica- 
tion of the will. It promises to minister to necessi- 
ties of human nature which are felt even by minds 
of the humblest cast. In its adaptedness to such deep- 
felt necessities, which spring out of man's constitution 
and condition, which cleave to him as a moral, respon- 
sible, finite creature who looks forward to death, and, 
with more or less of hope or dread, to an existence 
hereafter, — in this adaptedness lies an argument for 
its truth and supernatural parentage. If Christianity 
is found to be matched to human nature as no other 
system can pretend to be, and as cannot be accounted 
for by any wisdom of which man is capable, then we 
are justified in referring it to God as its author. In 
the proportion in which this fitness of Christianity to 



ADAPTEDNESS OF THE GOSPEL TO HUMAN NATURE. 337 

the constitution, the cravings, the distress, of the soul, 
becomes a matter of living experience, the force of the 
argument will be appreciated. It will be understood 
in the degree in which it is first felt. Here the data of 
the inference are drawn from the experiences of the 
heart. The impressions which carry one to this con- 
clusion are contingent on the state of the sensibility, the 
activity of conscience, and the bent of the will. The 
conclusion itself is one to which the soul advances by 
an inward movement, in which, rational though it be, 
the affections and the will are the determining factors. 

There is in the human spirit a profound need of God. 
This grows out of the fact that we are not only finite, 
but consciously finite, and not sufficient for ourselves. 
But, whether the source of it is reflected on or not, 
this need of a connection with the Eternal and Divine 
is felt. In reality it is deeper in the heart, whether it 
be consciously recognized or not, than any other want 
of human nature; for example, than the instinct that 
craves friendship, or impels to the creation of family 
ties, or seeks knowledge for its own sake. The need 
of God may be, it often is, latent, undefined. It stirs 
in the soul below the clear light of consciousness. Its 
very vagueness has the effect to send man off in pursuit 
of a variety of finite objects, which are sought for the 
sake of filling the void, the true significance of which 
is not yet discerned. Now it is wealth, now it is honor 
and fame, now it is the acquisitions of science. Or it 
may be sensual pleasure, or the entertainment afforded 
by social intercourse, or any one of a myriad sorts of 
diversion. The different forms of earthly good are 
estimated beyond the value which experience finds in 
them. When they are gained, the void within is not 
filled. If these remarks are commonplace, their very 



3o8 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

triteness proves their truth. In childhood, we find the 
world into which life is opening sufficient. We do not 
tire of its novelty. The. future stretches before us 
with a seemingly infinite attraction. In the human 
beings about us, in the spectacles presented for the eye 
to gaze on, in the work and in the play that await 
us at each day's dawn, there is enough. It is only 
in exceptional instances, in the case of unusually 
thoughtful and deep-souled children, that there appears 
a sacred discontent with the things that are comprised 
in the life about them. When we emerge out of im- 
maturity, there will arise within us a sense of the un- 
satisfactoriness of existence, — a feeling not in the least 
cynical, not always, certainly, due to disappointments, 
though experiences of hardship and bereavement, or of 
whatever makes the heart ache, do certainly aggravate 
this hunger of the soul. It may be that there will 
co-exist an inexpressible feeling of loneliness. There is 
a reaching out for something larger than human love 
can provide, and for something which human love, when 
tasted to the full, leaves unsupplied. Study, travel, 
absorption in pleasant labor, experiments in quest of 
happiness from this or that source, much as they may 
do to drive away temporarily the feeling of want, fail to 
pacify it permanently. There is a cry in the soul, even 
if not so articulate as to be distinctly heard by the soul 
itself, to which no response comes, from the world. 
Gifted minds which of set purpose shut their ears to this 
voice within have their moments in which they cannot 
avoid hearing it. Goethe is one of the most prominent 
examples of the deliberate purpose to confine the 
attention within the finite realm, and to live upon the 
delights of art, literature, science, love. Whatever 
could disturb the repose of the spirit, the dark side of 



ADAPTEDNESS OF THE GOSPEL TO HUMAN NATURE. 339 

mortal experience, harassing questions respecting the 
future, he would banish from thought. Yet this serene 
man said to his friend, " I have ever been esteemed one 
of fortune's chiefest favorites ; nor can I complain of 
the course my life has taken. Yet, truly, there has 
been nothing but toil and care ; and in my seventy-fifth 
year I may say that I have never had four weeks of 
genuine pleasure. The stone was ever to be rolled up 
anew." 1 Rest was not attained. There was a lurking 
sense that the peace which came and went had no 
perennial source. " We may lean for a while," he 
once said, " on our brothers and friends, be amused by 
acquaintances, rendered happy by those we love ; but 
in the end man is always driven back upon himself. 
And it seems as if the divinity had so placed himself in 
relation to man as not always to respond to his rever- 
ence, trust, and love ; at least in the terrible moment of 
need. - " " There had then been," writes Mr. Hutton, in 
his thoughtful Essay on Goethe, — " there had then been 
a time when the easy familiarity with which the young 
man scrutinized the universe had been exchanged for 
the humble glance of the heart-stricken child ; and he 
had shrunk away from that time (as he did from every 
hour of life when pain would have probed to the very 
bottom the secrets of his nature), to take refuge in the 
exercise of a faculty which would have been far stronger 
and purer, had it never helped him to evade those 
awful pauses in existence when alone the depths of our 
personal life lie bare before the inward eye, and we 
start to see both ' whither we are going, and whence 
we came.' Goethe deliberately turned his back upon 
those inroads which sin and death make into our natural 
habits and routine. From the pleading griefs, from 
1 Eckermann's Conversations of Goethe, p. 76. 



840 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

the challenging guilt, from the warning shadows, of 
his own past life, he turned resolutely away, like his 
own Faust, to the alleviating occupations of the present. 
Inch by inch he contested the inroads of age upon his 
existence, striving to banish the images of new graves 
from his thoughts long before his nature had ceased to 
quiver with the shock of parting ; never seemingly for 
a moment led by grief to take conscious refuge in the 
love of God and his hopes of a hereafter." 1 

This just criticism of Goethe brings us to another 
deep feeling of the human soul, — a more solemn expe- 
rience, a more imperious need. The yearning of the 
finite soul for an infinite good is not its most agonizing 
emotion. The craving which an intelligent creature, 
however pure, would feel, — the craving for an object 
meet for its boundless desires, — is far from comprising 
the whole need of man. There is a sense of guilt, 
which, sooner or later, with more or less persistency, 
haunts the soul. It may exist only as an uneasy 
suspicion. It will frequently arise in connection with 
special instances of wrong-doing, or of neglect of duty 
in relation to other men. One finds himself accused 
in conscience of being selfish in his conduct. The con- 
sciousness of secret purposes which his moral sense 
condemns inspires him with a feeling of unworthiness 
and of shame. He falls below his own ideals ; he de- 
tects himself in a lack of courage, of truth, of purity, 
of magnanimity, of loyalty to the just claims of rela- 
tives, or of neighbors, or of society at large. Self- 
accusation may go so far as to induce self-loathing. 
The more he probes his own character, the more aware 
does he become that there is something false and wrong 
at the core. He is living to the world, is making the 
1 Hutton's Essays, vol. ii. (Literary), p. 77. 



ADAPTEDNESS OF THE GOSPEL TO HUMAN NATURE. 341 

good which the world yields, or self-gratification in a 
more gross or more refined form, the goal and end of 
his striving. Not only is he without God, he is alien- 
ated from him ; and in this alienation, carrying in it 
an idolatry of the creature and of finite good, he finds 
the root of the evil that is in him. Then the sense of 
guilt attaches itself to the impiety or ungodliness out 
of which, as an innermost fountain, flows the defiled 
stream of ethical misconduct. We are drawing no 
fancy picture. The sense of unworthiness is not a 
morbid experience. It is not confined to transient 
moods; it is not limited to characters of exceptional 
depravity ; it does not belong alone to men of the spir- 
itual elevation of Pascal and Luther, of Augustine and 
Edwards ; it does not pertain to one nation exclusively, 
or to any single branch of the human family alone ; it is 
not an artificial product of the teaching of Christianity, 
or of any other of the religions that have prevailed 
on the earth. It is a human experience, giving, there- 
fore, the most diversified manifestations of its presence 
in the confessions of individuals, in poetry, and in 
other forms of literature, in penances, sacrifices, and 
other rites of worship. The "whole world is guilty 
before God," and in some degree sensible of its guilt, 
notwithstanding the obtuseness of conscience which the 
practice of evil-doing engenders, the natural efforts to 
stifle so humiliating and painful an emotion, the par- 
tially successful efforts to divert the attention from it, 
and the sophistry which labors to make it seem unreal. 
Then the sense of being without God is converted 
into a sense of estrangement from him. The feeling 
of responsibleness and of guilt, while it brings God 
more vividly to mind, awakens the consciousness of 
being repelled from communion with him. The sense 



342 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

of condemnation both drives one away from God, and 
compels the thought of him. The soul hides itself 
" among the trees of the garden," yet is followed, and 
held, and mysteriously drawn, by the offended Being 
from whom it has unnaturally separated itself. 

There is more than a sense of unworthiness : there 
is a consciousness of bondage. It may be that there 
are particular habits, under which the will has been 
subjugated, which have now come to be felt as a chain. 
Sensual appetite in one form or another, ungovernable 
resentment, covetousness, or some other base purpose or 
corrupt form of conduct, may have established a mas- 
tery, which, when the conviction of guilt arises, and 
with it discontent, is felt as a galling tyranny. If there 
be no single predominant passion, the general principle 
of worldliness which has enthroned the creature in the 
room of the Creator oppresses the soul that has now 
awoke to a perception of its abnormal and guilty state. 
Struggles to break loose from the yoke of habit, which 
has become bound up with the laws of association that 
determine the current of thought, has enslaved the 
affections, and taken captive the will, prove ineffectual. 
" What I would, that do I not ; but what I hate, that I 
do ; " or, as the heathen poet expresses it, — 

" Vide meliora proboque ; 
Deteriora sequor." 

Of course the struggle against inward evil may be 
faint, but in strong and earnest natures it may 
amount to an agony. The insurrection against the 
power to which the will has surrendered itself may 
rend the soul as a kingdom is torn by civil strife. 
The unaided effort at self-emancipation turns out to 
be fruitless. It is the vain struggle of Laocoon in the 



ADAPTEDNESS OF THE GOSPEL TO HUMAN NATURE. 343 

coils of the serpent. It may end in a despairing sub- 
mission to evil. 

But this description does not complete the account 
of the experience of the soul in its relations to God, as 
long as it is yet practically ignorant of the gospel. 
The misery of human life must be taken into consid- 
eration. Where there is youth, health, prosperity, and 
the buoyancy of spirits which is natural under these 
circumstances, there is commonly but a slight apprecia- 
tion of the countless forms of distress from which even 
the most favored class of mankind do not escape. That 
there is no sunshine in human life, even in situations 
that are adverse, only a cynic would be disposed to deny. 
But he is equally blind to facts who fails to recognize 
that the earthly life of men is a scene abounding in 
trouble, in pain of body and anguish of spirit, in hearts 
lacerated by fellow-beings who have been loved and 
trusted, made sore by bereavement, anxious with num- 
berless cares, often weary or half-weary with the burden 
of toil and the bitterness of grief. Then there ap- 
proaches every household and every individual the 
dark shadow of death. The love of life is an instinct 
so strong, that only in exceptional cases is it fully 
overborne by the pressure of despondency. Yet death 
stands waiting. More than half of the race expire in 
infancy. Before every individual is the prospect of 
this inevitable event, which he endeavors to avert and 
to postpone as long as possible, all the while, however, 
aware that his painstaking will at length be fruitless. 

None but the superstitious consider that pain and 
affliction are distributed in strict proportion to trans- 
gression, and that the happiest lot falls uniformly to 
the least unworthy. But, while this notion is abandoned 
as a falsehood of superstition, we may recognize in it 



344 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

the distortion of a truth which is embedded in the con- 
victions of mankind, — the truth that natural evil and 
moral evil are connected in the system of things ; that 
one is the concomitant and shadow of the other ; that 
suffering, to a large extent, to say the least, is a part of 
a retributive order. Certain it is, that pain and sorrow 
tend to provoke self-judgment and that feeling of ill- 
desert which is inseparable from conscious guilt. The 
presage of judgment arises spontaneously in the soul. 
Especially does the prospect of death excite remorseful 
apprehension. The vivid presentiment of a retribution 
to come, or an undefined dread of this nature, springs 
up unbidden in the mind, in the presence of that awful 
crisis which breaks up our present form of being, and 
sends the spirit out of its fleshly tenement into the 
world beyond. Death itself wears a penal aspect : it 
is felt to be something incongruous, a violent rupture 
of a bond, which, if dissolved at all, we might look to 
see loosened by a gentler process, by a transition not 
attended with the pangs of dissolution. 

When the moral and spiritual perceptions have been 
thus quickened, the mind is struck with the fact that 
Christianity, as set forth in the Scriptures, recognizes 
to the full extent all the facts which it has been aroused 
to discern. Not only are they admitted in the Scrip- 
tures, and spread out with no attempt to disguise them : 
they are insisted on, and are depicted with a startling 
impressiveness. An individual thus awakened to the 
realities of existence finds depicted there man's need of 
God, — his thirst for God, — and the vanity of seeking 
to slake the thirst of the soul for the Infinite from any 
mundane fountains of pleasure. " Why do ye spend 
money for that which is not bread ? " He finds there 
the unworthiness that belongs to human character and 



ADAPTEDNESS OF THE GOSPEL TO HUMAN NATURE. 345 

conduct proclaimed with a piercing emphasis. There is 
no attenuation of human guilt, whether as connected 
with immorality or with ungodliness. The actual con- 
dition of men, as regards the sufferings to which all are 
exposed, and those from which none escape, is very often 
delineated, and is everywhere latently assumed. Death 
is held up to view as the goal which all are approach- 
ing. The penal element included in it is brought out. 
The foreboding of conscience, the product of the sense 
of ill desert, is distinctly sanctioned in the solemn affir- 
mation of judgment to come. In short, the malady of 
the soul, in all its characteristic features, is exposed with 
such fidelity and force as to evoke and intensify the 
spiritual needs and fears which have been adverted to. 
This outspokenness of the Bible, this laying bare of 
the evil and of the danger, invites confidence. It raises 
at least the hope, that, where the disorder is so fully 
understood, an adequate remedy will not be wanting. 

The need of the soul is Reconciliation. This is 
the first want of which it is conscious. It needs to be 
brought back to God, and to communion with him, 
through Forgiveness. It needs help from without, that 
it may overcome the principle of sin, and attain the 
freedom of a willing loyalty. It needs deliverance 
from death, as far as death is an object of dread either 
in itself or for what is expected after it. 

How can one who is in this mood fail to be deeply 
impressed at the outset by the circumstance, that, while 
the Scriptures assert without extenuation the guilt of 
sin and the righteous displeasure of God against it, 
they announce at the same time not an inevitable per- 
dition, but a complete rescue? There is a proclamation 
of "good tidings." First, there is the momentous an- 
nouncement of a merciful Approach made by God to 



346 THE GROUNDS OF TIIEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

estranged and condemned mortals. This simple assur- 
ance, apart from all methods and details, will excite a 
profound interest. The initiative in the work of deliv- 
erance has been taken by Him from whom alone for- 
giveness and deliverance can proceed. Then comes the 
explicit announcement of the mission of a Saviour. 
There is a manifestation of God to men through a man ; 
a man, yet in such an intimacy of union to God, that 
his most fit designation is "the Son of God," — a union 
such that no one knows the Father but the Son, and 
whoever has seen him may be said to have seen the 
Father, — a union which had its mysterious springs 
back of his life among men. He brings a proclamation 
of the pardon of sin. Ill-desert is to be no barrier to 
the coming back of the transgressor to the Father's 
house and heart. Death is no longer to be an object of 
dismal foreboding : it is to become a door-way to an 
immortal life hereafter. All this is said by the divine 
Messenger. But the redemption thus declared is repre- 
sented as achieved by him. A man among men, born 
of woman, subject to temptation, identifying himself in 
sympathy with his race, he surrenders his own will to 
the will of God, with every access of trial carries this 
surrender to a higher pitch, carries human nature victo- 
riously through life, and through the anguish of death, 
— the final test of obedience to God and of devotion 
to men, endured willingly, because it was a cup given 
him of the Father to drink. In that death is the life 
of the world. Here is the response of Christianity 
to the call of the conscience and heart fur something 
of the nature of expiation, — an Atonement for sin. 
From death the Saviour rises to be the author of life. 
Through the Spirit given to replace his visible presence, 
the soul is convinced of its sin, pacified in its self-re- 



ADAPTEDNESS OF THE GOSPEL TO HUMAN NATURE. 347 

proach, delivered from its servitude to evil, and brought 
into a likeness to the Redeemer, to whom it is spiritu- 
ally united, as the branches are in the vine. 

Jesus came to plant within the soul a life of filial 
union to God. In the assured confidence and peace of 
that life there would be a conscious superiority to the 
world, an independence of the changes and chances of 
this mortal state. In that life of heavenly trust, fears 
and anxieties of an earthly nature would lose their 
power to break the calm of the spirit. There would 
inhere in it a power to overcome the world. Resent- 
ful passions would die out in the recollection of the 
heavenly Father's patience and forgiving love, and in 
the sense of the inestimable worth that belongs to 
every soul, however unworthy. A secret life, serene in 
the midst of sorrow and danger, a perennial fountain 
of rest, and stimulus to kindly and beneficent exertion, 
— such was the gift of Christ to men. " My peace I 
give unto you." This life he first realized in himself. 
He maintained and perfected it through conflict. He 
imparts it through the channel of personal union and 
fellowship. 1 The Stoic sought for tranquillity. He 
purchased it by subjecting the natural affections and 
emotions to the tyranny of an iron will. It was freedom 
from disquiet, attained by paralyzing a part of human 
nature. If gentleness and sympathy survived, as in 
individuals like Marcus Aurelius, it was in the case of 
souls remarkably favored in their native qualities, or 
not conformed practically to the hard and gloomy dog- 
mas which formed the basis of their system. Christian 
serenity leaves room for the full flow and warmth of all 
human sympathies and affections. The Buddhist sought 

1 This life is admirably set forth in that classic of devotional litera- 
ture, The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas a Kempis. 



348 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

for inward peace. He sought for it, likewise, in a re- 
nunciation of the world. But the path was that of the 
ascetic. The Christian is empowered to use the world 
without abusing it, or being enslaved to it. He is not 
obliged to fling away the good gifts of God ; but, by 
making them servants instead of masters, he can enjoy, 
and yet can forego, that which he possesses. He car- 
ries within him a treasure sufficient when all else is 
lost. 

This is but a meagre sketch of what the soul actually 
finds in Christianity as bread for its hunger. It is a 
question of historic fact. There have been millions of 
human beings who have been delivered from conscious 
alienation from God, and enabled to live lives of com- 
parative purity and well-doing, and to die in peace, in 
the hope of immortal life, in the way delineated. This 
effect of Christianity, age after age, would be inexpli- 
cable, were there not an adaptedness in it to the needs 
of human nature. For example, the conquest of the 
Roman Empire by the Christian faith is an insoluble 
problem, except on the supposition of a profound cor- 
respondence between the moral and spiritual necessities 
of the soul and the cravings of the heart, on the one 
hand, and the Christian faith on the other. Causes 
like those assigned by Gibbon need themselves to be 
accounted for. They mainly describe traits of Chris- 
tianity itself : they would have been inoperative inde- 
pendently of the impression made by Christ himself. 

There being this adaptedness in Christianity to man's 
spiritual being, how shall it be accounted for ? Can it 
be attributed to the Nazarene and to the group of fish- 
ermen who followed him, they being credited with no 
more than an ordinary human insight? Is there not 
reason to conclude that supernatural agency, even a 



ADAPTEDNESS OF THE GOSPEL TO HUMAN NATURE. 349 

divine wisdom and will, was active in this great move- 
ment? Leaving out of view other kinds of proof, as 
that from testimony to miracles, the practical argu- 
ment for the miraculous origin of Christianity, from its 
proving itself the counterpart of human need and the 
fulfilment of the soul's highest aspirations, is one diffi- 
cult to controvert. It is the argument of the man born 
blind, who replied to the objections of the Pharisees, 
" Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not : one thing 
I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see." 1 

i John ix. 25. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY FROM THE CHAR- 
ACTER OF THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE. 

Christianity verifies itself by the satisfaction which 
it affords to reason. It is true that, in one particular, 
Christianity is broadly distinguished from systems of 
human philosophy. It professes to have another object 
than merely to present a theory or exposition of the 
nature of things. It will do more than draw in outline 
"an intellectual system of the universe." Inquisitive 
minds, in past times and in our own day, have sought 
to unveil that rational order, which, it is taken for 
granted, pervades the world, and binds together the 
beings that compose it ; and they have aspired to trace 
all things back to their ultimate origin. Christianity 
is a religion, and it is the religion of redemption. It 
includes things done, interpositions of God in history, a 
signal expression and achievement of love on the plane 
of human action. In a word, Christianity is historical. 
It contains an element intractable to mere speculation. 
It can be evolved by no a priori reasoning from axiomatic 
truth. It does not admit of being resolved into a chain 
of metaphysical ideas. 

Yet Christianity is a system of truth. As such it 
invites comparison with other systems. It embraces 
conceptions of God and of man, the two parties with 
whom redemption is concerned ; and, respecting re- 
demption itself, it asserts a consonance of this historic 

350 



THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE. 351 

transaction with the principles of right reason. The 
origin of things, the nature and chief end of man, the 
relation of man to the world in which he is placed, 
the purport of history, what evil is, and how it is 
related to the universe as a whole, and to its First 
Cause, — these are some of the important points which 
philosophy has always dealt with, and on which Chris- 
tianity presents a teaching of its own. Is this teaching 
satisfactory to reason ? The question is not whether it 
clears up all difficulties. The proposal to do this would 
of itself constitute a presumption against the preten- 
sions of any system. Omniscience is not, and can not 
be made, an attribute of men. But does the Christian 
system shed enough of light on the problems referred to 
to inspire confidence in it? And is it so reasonable 
and so lofty a system, that we are led to refer it to a 
higher source than the human minds directly concerned 
in the framing of it? With these questions in mind, 
let us glance at some of the principal characteristics of 
the Christian doctrine. 

It may be thought that these questions imply a 
capacity of reason to judge which it does not possess, 
and which Christianity even denies to it. The limit of 
reason, it may be said, is reached when the fact of a 
revelation has been rationally established. Nothing fur- 
ther remains but a docile reception of what revelation 
affirms. Are not the doctrines of the gospel an offence 
to reason? Does not the New Testament say this? 
Does not history confirm it? 

In answer, let it be observed, that, when reason sits 
in judgment on the question whether a revelation has 
been made, it exercises an imperial function. How, 
moreover, can it avoid forming its conclusion partly on 
what the alleged revelation teaches? Yet the objec- 



352 THE GROUNDS OF TIIEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

tions stated above are valid as against that usurpation 
of the understanding which is called "rationalism." 
Christianity does not charge reason itself, but unregen- 
erate reason, with incapacity to discern the things of the 
spirit. Regenerated reason finds nothing contradictory 
to itself, or uncongenial, in the Christian sj'stem. The 
New Testament does make the perception of the truth 
of the gospel contingent on the bent of the will. " He 
that willeth to do his will shall know of the doctrine," 
etc. This philosophy of religion, instead of warranting 
doubt as to the pretensions of the gospel, excites con- 
fidence. It is a profound philosophy. The human soul 
is recognized as a spiritual unit. The part which the 
spiritual nature and the character have in the ascertain- 
ment of truth is recognized. Knowing keeps pace with 
doing. The mind is dependent on the heart, as the 
heart is dependent on the mind. Yet, as long as char- 
acter and intellectual development are both imperfect, 
the element of authority continues. We are climbing 
a hill, but see not all, which, we are told, will be visible 
from the summit. Insight and belief are not yet co- 
extensive. At the goal both are blended into one. 

With this explanation, we may glance at some of the 
main particulars of Christian doctrine. 

1. In the forefront of the teaching of Christianity is 
its pure theism. The being on whom the universe 
depends, from whom it derives its existence, as well as 
its unity and order, is the one God, a spirit, to whom 
belongs every conceivable perfection. In modern times 
it has been occasionally proposed to supersede Chris- 
tianity by deism, or by theism without revelation. 
Deists or theists of this class have commonly failed to 
recognize the fact, that the one article of their creed 
is an heir-loom from the religion of the Bible. The 



THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE. 353 

truth of one personal God, the Creator and Ruler of 
the universe, if it can be established by the light of 
nature, is, nevertheless, actually derived from Chris- 
tianity. It was brought to the European mind as a 
part of the Christian faith. But for this teaching, they 
who profess to believe in God, but to reject revela- 
tion, might still be worshipping " gods many, and lords 
many." Mohammedanism is a deistic religion, but it 
borrowed its doctrine of one God from Hebrew and 
Christian sources. 

When the Christian conception of God is contrast- 
ed with that of the Greek philosophy, the ripest product 
of the uninspired intellect of man, the superiority of 
the former is evident. None of the Greek philosophers, 
not even Plato and Aristotle, attained to the idea of 
the absolute and infinite. The eternity of matter, a 
partially intractable material, was assumed ; and thus 
a dualism, unreduced, and of baneful tendency in its 
bearing on ethics, infected their theology. Prayer, 
personal communion with God, were encouraged by 
Socrates and by the noblest of the schools that sprang 
up after him. But the Epicureans cast aside practical 
religion altogether ; since their creed made the world a 
machine that took care of itself, and the deities indiffer- 
ent to every thing that occurs in this mundane sphere. 

Pantheistic philosophers have sought to improve upon 
the Christian conception of God. They have thought 
it a gain to divest the absolute of consciousness and of 
All other personal attributes, as if unconscious being 
were higher than self-conscious, and as if a substance 
that is necessitated to produce a finite world, be that 
world real or a mass of illusions, could be considered in- 
dependent as to its being and its action. On the plane 
of philosophy, the idea of a God who gives rise to other 



354 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

existences through a free self-determination, not con- 
strained from within or without, is to be preferred to 
all the rival theories in which fate is made supreme. 

The mode of creation, Christianity does not profess 
to explain ; but the immanence of God, in opposition 
to the deistic notion of him as acting on the world from 
a point exterior, is abundantly affirmed in the Scrip- 
tures. He is immanent at the same time that he is 
transcendent. The fountain of all energy and vitality, 
he does not exhaust his power in carrying forward 
from withiji the course of nature. He is above, as he 
was before, all things. All that Pantheism values in 
the indwelling of deity as an ever-active Presence, 
Christianity includes in its conception of God. 

The Christian definition of the character of God is 
equally agreeable to reason. That character is made 
up of righteousness and love, not righteousness with- 
out love, or love without righteousness. It is love that 
seeks the well-being of all creatures, yet for that rea- 
son is hostile to whatever is unrighteous, to whatever is 
opposite to its own nature, and to universal good. 

The Christian doctrine of the providence of God, as 
not limited to things and events of extraordinary mo- 
ment, as the heathen philosophers were apt to imagine, 
but as extending over the minutest objects, and over 
occurrences apparently insignificant, — this doctrine 
alone answers to the rational idea of an infinite Being. 
It is one of the peculiarities of the biblical doctrine, 
that, while the majesty of God is exalted above any limit 
that imagination can set, there is associated with these 
views the representation of him as caring tenderly for 
the wants and the fears of the humblest human being, 
as even listening with pity to the cry of the creatures 
inferior to man. " Not a sparrow falls to the ground 



THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE. 355 

without him." This is said of the Being who " sitteth 
on the circle of the heavens," and before whom the 
nations of mankind are as "the dust in the balance." 

If the providence of God shapes the course of indi- 
viduals and of communities, Christianity also brings to 
light the moral government which he is administering 
over the world of mankind. His justice is declared 
to be exerted in the allotment of good and evil which 
follow in the train of well-doing and evil-doing. These 
awards occur, to be sure, not in exact proportion to the 
merit of individuals, yet in such manner and proportion 
as to excite the expectation that the system will in the 
end show itself in complete accord with righteousness. 

2. In the Christian doctrine respecting man, his 
weakness and frailty as a child of the earth, framed of 
the dust, and his lofty spiritual nature and destiny, are 
truthfully recognized. Allied on the one side to the 
animals, he is made, nevertheless, in the image of God. 
There is accorded him in this relation a position exalted 
above the perishing races that with him inhabit the 
earth. He is to live beyond death. He is false to his 
nature if he does not seek his blessedness in filial com- 
munion with God. He is endued with the lofty but 
awful power of free self-determination, the foundation 
of personal responsibility. He is made the arbiter of 
his own destiny. It is left to him to choose whether 
he shall rise to an unimaginable height of moral and 
spiritual excellence, or sink to a proportionate depth of 
ruin. Yet side by side with this doctrine of human 
freedom and consequent accountableness, there are 
found in the Bible the strongest assertions of the con- 
trol exercised by God over men, and over the course 
of events in which their volitions bear a part. If we 
glance at the schemes of human philosophy, we shall 



356 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

find that most frequently one truth on this subject is 
affirmed, but coupled with a denial or curtailment of 
its counterpart and seeming opposite. We meet with 
assertions of the doctrine of free-will, no room being 
allowed for that divine ordering of events without 
which God would be subordinate to his creatures, and 
history a chaos of random occurrences. More often we 
find the efficiency of the superior powers affirmed in 
a way that explicitly, or in effect, shuts out human 
liberty, and compels the inference that free-will is a 
phantom. In this coupling of two apparently antago- 
nistic types of teaching, each of which, however, finds 
a warrant in every broad view of things, the Bible 
evinces its wisdom. If the sacred writers make no 
attempt to reconcile divine control and free-will, it is 
because of the practical, as contrasted with the specula- 
tive, spirit and design of the Scriptures. Metaphysical 
disquisition is foreign to the end which the authors of 
the Bible had in view. 

3. The Christian doctrine of sin is marked by a deep 
perception of the nature of character, and finds a 
response in the verdicts of an enlightened conscience. 
The foremost philosophers of antiquity traced moral 
evil to a physical source. The germs of it were thought 
to lie in the constitution of man. It sprang of neces- 
sity from the matter which enters into his being. Thus 
the real nature of sin was obscured : it was made to be 
something physical, therefore something inevitable. 
Responsibility was in a proportionate degree eclipsed. 
A mist was spread over the moral judgment of the in- 
dividual, whether as directed to his own character or to 
the character of mankind generally. Kindred theories 
appear and re-appear in Christian ages, wherever the 
doctrine of the Bible is forsaken for a wisdom assum- 



THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE. 857 

ing to be higher. It is evident, however, that to trace 
moral evil to any thing behind or below the will is to 
violate conscience, and really to degrade man from the 
high level of free and responsible agency. No being 
with capacities less exalted would be capable of sin, as 
sin is defined in Christian teaching. To supersede this 
conception by one which transmutes moral evil into 
natural evil is not to lift up man in dignity, but to 
degrade him. 

The depth of the Christian view of moral evil is 
evinced in the tracing of it collectively to the alienation 
of the heart or will from God. Separation from com- 
munion with God, the self-assertion which aspires to 
independence, disobedience to him, — here, according 
to the Bible, is the fons et origo malorum. The substi- 
tution of an inferior good for the highest good, the 
world for God, is at the root of immorality. Impiety 
is the source of corrupt and unrighteous conduct m 
human relations. The chief good being lost, a strug- 
gle ensues to extort from the world more of happiness 
than it has to yield. Propensities are inflamed, and the 
more, in proportion as they are indulged. Man having 
broken loose from the law of his being, there is no 
effectual curb upon the passions. Selfishness prevails, 
with its two instruments, lawless force and fraud. 

The Christian doctrine of sin is conformed to truth 
in that it makes the individual implicated with the race 
in being under the dominion of sin, at the same time 
that personal agency and accountableness are insisted 
on. This truth suggests problems which Scripture does 
not undertake to solve. For the most part, it relies 
upon the common convictions of men, and upon con- 
science, as affording a sufficient sanction to its doctrine 
in both of its aspects. To harmonize the fact of indi- 



858 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

vidual responsibility with the community of the race in 
sin and guilt is a task left, for the most part, for the 
Christian philosopher to perform as far as he may. 
But just as the combination of divine control with 
human liberty in the biblical system is an indication 
of its breadth of view, so is the assertion of sin as at 
once the attribute of the individual, and the common 
character of the race. Seeming inconsistencies of this 
nature, instead of being a ground of objection to the 
Christian system, are marks of a comprehensiveness 
which takes account of all the facts, and looks at the 
truth upon more than one side. 

4. The Christian doctrine of Salvation is the coun- 
terpart of the doctrine of Sin. Redemption is a moral 
deliverance. The old philosophers, who placed the 
seeds of moral defilement in matter, must needs hold to 
a physical redemption. Spirit must be cleansed from 
the polluting contact with the body. Frequently an 
ascetic discipline was prescribed. Sometimes there was 
demanded an austere discipline of the intellect, which 
might liberate the intellectual principle from the inter- 
mingling of corporeal influences. The spiritual philoso- 
phy of a Plato confuses the moral with the physical 
in its theory of redemption as in its theory of sin. Pu- 
rification is quite as much a metaphysical change, a 
purging of the soul from the ingredients of sense, as 
a cleansing of the heart, that is, the rectification of the 
will. Degenerate forms of Christianity introduce kin- 
dred ideas. Physical austerities and asceticism follow 
in their train. The Christianity of the Bible, on the 
contrary, lays its finger on the source of the maladj^. 
The axe is laid at the root of the tree. Repentance is 
a turning of the will in the right direction. Conver- 
sion is a self-surrender, in a voluntary act, to God as the 



THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE. 359 

object of supreme trust and service. But the breadth 
of the Christian system is again manifest in the circum- 
stance that it includes in its doctrine the redemption 
of the whole man. This is the significance of the res- 
urrection. It is a rescue from physical evil and from 
death, its extreme form. It is the restoration of the 
organism through which the soul acts to its pristine 
or ideal perfection. As the body of Jesus was raised 
up, transfigured, converted into " a spiritual body," or a 
body divested of the infirmities and inconveniences that 
belong to matter in the crass form in which matter is 
known to us, so the prospect is held out, that, in the 
room of the bodies which return to dust, there will be 
developed for the redeemed soul an organism suited to 
its needs and to the conditions of the immortal state of 
being, — an organism of which the material body worn 
here is the type and precursor. 

Inasmuch as salvation is moral in its essence, it is 
within the reach of all. Christianity — in keeping with 
its main postulate, that the ills of man spring ultimately 
from a moral source, the alienation of the heart from 
the Father of our spirits — addresses itself to the work 
of remedying this primary disorder. The chief good is 
to be found in communion with God. To this com- 
munion a pure heart — a righteous choice — is the one 
condition. Thus the boon offered by Christianity is 
accessible to all. The Greek philosophers went too far 
in identifying virtue with knowledge. Socrates himself 
was not free from this error. Hence, in Plato and Aris- 
totle and the other masters, it is only the intellectually 
gifted to whom the highest spiritual good is open. The 
world at large is debarred from attaining it. The sage 
in the Stoic system must be one on whom nature has be- 
stowed special endowments. The philosophers taught, 



360 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

that, to their class alone, redemption in the full sense is 
possible. The true good was an esoteric possession. It 
belonged to the select few. The intellectual made up 
the elect. The idea of an intellectual aristocracy, raised 
above the common herd by the possession of an insight 
utterly out of their reach, pervades the ancient schools. 
Christianity, through its conception of evil as moral in 
its essence and source, is humane and catholic. The 
classes of men who are despised by those who are proud 
of their superior talents and culture are cordially in- 
vited by Christianity to receive its best gifts. The 
point, however, which is here to be considered, is not 
the catholic, compassionate spirit of the gospel, but 
rather, the profound discernment which it implies of 
the real origin of sin and evil in men, and of the sort 
of remedy that must be applied. 

If we were to enter into the particular consideration 
of this remedy, we should be called on to consider the 
doctrines of the incarnation and of the atonement. 
Apart from the testimony of Scripture to the truth of 
these doctrines, none but the shallow or ill-informed 
will be disposed to deny that they contain grand con- 
ceptions. That God should unite himself to the race, 
to the end that he might unite the race to himself; that, 
by an obedience unto death, a great reparation should 
be made for man's violation, through sin, of the moral 
order of the world, — these are ideas, to say the least, 
fraught with interest. Last of all, can philosophers 
who lean towards Pantheism regard with disrespect a 
doctrine which brings God into so close affiliation with 
human nature. That salvation is accomplished by a 
mediator is in harmony with the analogies of the divine 
procedure in the course of nature and of history. That 
vast benefits should flow to the many through voluntary 



THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE. 361 

and unmerited sufferings endured by one is a familiar 
fact of experience. 

But, not to enter into the special discussion of these 
topics, there are certain prominent characteristics of 
the Christian doctrine of redemption which are stamped 
upon the face of it. There is a conjunction of right- 
eousness and mercy. The work which is done by the 
Saviour is from beginning to end a manifestation — a 
realization we might better say — both of holiness and 
of love. There is not the least abatement of the inten- 
sity of the abhorrence of sin; yet forgiveness, so far 
as the recipient is concerned, could not be more free, 
complete, heartfelt. It may be further said, that this 
mingling of holiness, absolute and uncompromising, 
with a love to the transgressor that stops short of no 
sacrifice, and grants pardon " without money and with- 
out price," is fundamental to the gospel. 

The Christian doctrine of the influence of the spirit 
of God is in itself not more mysterious or inexplicable 
than the acknowledged personal influence of one human 
mind upon another. There is involved in it no more 
interference with the liberty of the will. The reasona- 
bleness of the Christian doctrine as a conception will 
be questioned only by a frigid, unphilosophical deism, 
which represents God as standing aloof from the world, 
and ignores the near affinity of the human to the divine. 

5. How stands Christianity on the questions of the 
theodicy? In particular, how is the infinitude of the 
divine attributes to be reconciled with the existence of 
evil? The Christian system rejects with abhorrence 
the pantheistic notion that wrong is a phase or rudi- 
ment of right. It pronounces a woe on all who call 
"evil" "good," or "good" "evil." How shall the ex- 
istence of sin be harmonized with the omnipotence and 



3C2 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

holiness of God ? And how shall the sufferings of crea- 
tures be reconciled with the ascription of boundless 
power and benevolence to the Creator and Disposer of 
all? 

Christianity abstains from a positive and complete 
solution of these problems. It enters an indignant pro- 
test against false theories, such as those which limit 
God by fate, or destroy human responsibility. The 
rational grounds of this protest are made evident. 
Enough is said to disarm the disbeliever or doubter, 
who on logical grounds would impugn the. perfections 
of God. It is made impossible to convict the Christian 
doctrine of God and of his government of error or in- 
consistency. This negative work is of great scientific 
value. 

To begin with natural evil. As concerns human 
suffering, it is impossible to aver, that, in a world where 
sin abounds, there is too much pain, or that it is un- 
wisely distributed with reference to the ends of justice 
and benevolence. It must be remembered, that the 
course of things is determined by general laws; and 
this, as far as we can judge, is the most beneficent ar- 
rangement. The pain which men suffer is represented 
as either penal or disciplinary, both as related to the 
individuals who suffer and to the community with which 
they stand in an organic relation. In a multitude of 
particular instances we can discern that the various 
forms of suffering are salutary in their tendency. No 
man knows enough respecting the system of things in 
its full extent, embracing the life to come as well as the 
life that now is, to affirm that the same is not true of 
all the pains and calamities to which we are subject. 
The teaching of revelation respecting death is, not that 
man was made in his physical nature immortal, but that 



THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE. 363 

physical immortality was to be the reward of moral 
obedience. There would have been some transition to 
the higher stage of being without the endurance of 
death in the present significance of the term, — the 
violent rupture of soul and body, with the agony and 
anxiety that precede and attend dissolution. If moral 
evil is apprehended in its true character, as an abnormal 
perversion at the very centre of personality, the scrip- 
tural doctrine of death as resulting in this indirect way 
will no longer appear strange and improbable. 

With respect to the existence of moral evil, much 
light is thrown on this dark problem which has puzzled 
men from the dawn of speculation, by the scriptural 
doctrine of human freedom. All direct agency in the 
production of sin is denied to the Creator. It is only 
the permission or non-exclusion of moral evil by his 
interposition which calls for explanation. The answer 
of Christian theology to objections brought on this 
score to the divine omnipotence and goodness, is that, 
for aught we know, the existence of freedom in crea- 
tures made and placed as the creatures of God are, and 
in a created system the best of all possible systems in 
its nature and results, — that the existence of freedom 
under these circumstances may be incompatible with 
the exclusion through the agency of God, whether 
moral or coercive, of sin, so far as sin actually exists. 
There may be an incompatibility as absolute as that 
which prevents a triangle from having a sum of angles 
greater or less than two. The moral influences ar- 
ranged for the prevention and reduction of moral evil, 
the measures appointed for overruling it when it ap- 
pears, and for vindicating righteousness in the punish- 
ment of it, may exhaust the resources which omnipo- 
tence can wisely exert in the way of antagonism to sin. 



364 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

If the subject of the actual issues of the world's 
history is to be considered as one topic of the theodicy, 
it is first to be said, that, to a large extent, these are 
veiled in mystery. We are debarred by ignorance from 
assuming that the human race comprises all, or even 
a considerable fraction, of the intelligent creatures who 
compose the universe. This circumstance of itself pre- 
cludes us from judging of the total results of a system 
whose extent is so imperfectly understood. The dis- 
closures, moreover, of the lot that awaits human beings 
hereafter, though clear and definite in some points, are, 
for reasons not wholly inscrutable, left obscure and frag- 
mentary. They partake of the ordinary style of pro- 
phetical teaching. They are brought forward, not to 
gratify a curiosity to peer into the future, but for warn- 
ing and encouragement in the struggle with temptation. 
In the second place, the principles on which divine 
judgment will proceed are, as it is always declared, 
marked by perfect equity and mercy. There is no 
condemnation which will not include a corresponding 
self-condemnation. There is no ruin possible to a re- 
sponsible creature of God which he does not bring on 
himself, first by voluntary transgression, and, secondly, 
by resistance or indifference to the merciful interven- 
tion which contains in it both the bestowal of pardon, 
and divine spiritual aid in casting off the habit of 
impiety and evil-doing, and in rising superior to the 
seductions of the tempter. The Christian doctrine is, 
that God seeks for those who are astray, and welcomes 
them, Avhen they return, with all the tenderness of a 
human father towards a wayward son. The conclusion 
of the whole matter is, that we must know more of the 
ultimate results of the creation and management of 

the entire universe, of only a small portion of which we 



THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE. 365 

have any definite knowledge, to authorize us in calling 
in question the infinite wisdom, the infinite power, the 
infinite justice, or the infinite goodness, of God. Such 
is the answer which the Scriptures, in substance, make 
to the objections of infidelity. On such a theodicy 
the Christian system of doctrine reposes. What other 
mode that has ever been proposed of meeting the 
questions suggested by the existence of evil is equally 
satisfactory ? 

In the discussions which we are now pursuing, the 
question of the truth of the several doctrines of Chris- 
tianity is pertinent only as illustrative of the depth and 
value of the Christian system. The foregoing remarks 
are designed, not so much to vindicate these doctrines 
against objections, as to produce a just impression of 
the high rank that belongs to the Christian system from 
an intellectual point of view. It will hardly be ques- 
tioned by any competent student, that Christianity pre- 
sents to the human mind a system of teaching on the 
most momentous themes, which, for its profundity and 
coherence, deserves respect, if it does not command 
unhesitating assent. The bare fact that Christian 
teaching has, age after age, absorbed the attention of 
so many of the ablest minds, is enough to make good 
this proposition. Men of powerful intellect, such as 
Thomas Aquinas, to whom writers like Aristotle are fa- 
miliar companions, have spent their lives in formulating 
Christian doctrine, in seeking to fathom its abysses of 
wisdom, and in showing its conformity to the most illu- 
minated reason. That which, century after century, has 
formed the subject of all this investigation and debate, 
must comprise within it a mine of thought. Looking, 
now, at the human originators of this teaching, on the 
human side alone, on the prophets of the old dispen- 



366 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

sation, the apostles, and the Teacher of Nazareth, how 
can this body of conceptions be accounted for ? How 
did Israelitish seers, some of whom were called from 
the plough, how did fishermen who had just left their 
nets, how did a young villager from a carpenter's shop 
in Galilee, arrive at these doctrines concerning God, 
the nature, duty, and destiny of man, ethical obliga- 
tions, the method of obtaining forgiveness and peace of 
conscience, and all the other topics which enter into 
the Christian system? Had Palestinian laborers, who 
were brought up to tend flocks, or cultivate vineyards, 
unfolded the astronomic system in advance of Coper- 
nicus, it would be thought a miracle. Can less be said 
of that moral and religious system which has drawn to 
it, and even now engages, the thoughtful study of the 
most acute intellects, and which has commended itself 
to the most of them for many centuries as far more 
satisfactory to reason than all that was contributed by 
the most brilliant minds of Greece for the solving of 
these problems? How happens it, that, in intellectual 
value, the impassioned utterances of Hebrew seers, the 
simple sayings of unlettered Jewish preachers, the 
aphorisms of the youthful Jesus, who was a stranger 
to the lore of even rabbinical schools, so far outstrip 
the consummate products of philosophical genius? 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY FROM CHRISTENDOM 
AS AN EFFECT OF CHRIST'S AGENCY. 

Not the supernatural origin of a religion, nor even 
its truth, can be decided by the number of its adher- 
ents: else Buddhism, with its four hundred and fifty 
millions, would hold the vantage-ground over against 
Christianity with its four hundred millions ; and Mo- 
hammedanism, with its one hundred and seventy-five 
millions, might put in a plausible claim to a higher than 
human derivation. It is necessary to consider in what 
way the converts of a religion have been won. Moham- 
medanism was a fanatical crusade against idolatry, that 
achieved its success by the sword and by the energy 
with which it was wielded. Force was exerted, to some 
extent, for the furtherance of Christianity by the suc- 
cessors of Constantine ; and force has been exerted in 
other instances, like that of the conquest of the Saxons 
by Charlemagne : yet there is no doubt that coer- 
cion — which, it may be observed, was used in the 
cause of Buddhism by the kings who embraced it — 
has, on the whole, hindered, instead of helped on, the 
progress of the gospel. The victory of the religion of 
the cross in the Roman Empire was really gained by 
moral means. The reactionary movement of Julian 
proved futile, for the reason that the faith which it at- 
tempted to succor had been smitten with death. When 
we consider the small beginnings of Christianity, in its 

367 



6btS THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

Galilean birthplace, and watch its progress against the 
organized and violent opposition of Judaism, and 
the successive attempts to extirpate it made by imperial 
Rome, from the cruelties of Nero and Domitian to the 
systematic persecution by Diocletian, its triumph over 
the ancient heathenism excites a wonder that is not 
lessened by the theories which have been invented to 
explain it. All the proximate causes of the down- 
fall and disappearance of the Graeco-Roman religion, 
through the preaching of the gospel, presuppose behind 
them, as the ultimate cause, the personal influence of 
Jesus Christ and of his life and death. When we see the 
same gospel, amid the ruins of the Roman Empire, sub- 
duing to itself the victorious barbarian tribes by whom 
it was overthrown, we gain a new impression of the 
mysterious efficacy that resides in it. An Asiatic reli- 
gion in its origin, it became the religion of Europe. 
Yet its adaptedness to races beyond the limits of the 
Aryan peoples it has fully demonstrated. 

But in order to complete the argument for the truth 
and divine origin of Christianity, drawn from its effect, 
we must go farther, and inquire into the particular 
character of that effect. The impression which the 
spread of the other religions — whether the national 
faiths, like the native religions of China, or the univer- 
sal systems, Mohammedanism and Buddhism — might 
leave upon us, is largely neutralized when we mark the 
character and limit of the influence exerted by them 
on human nature, culture, and civilization. We may, 
to be sure, recognize enough of good to prove that 
those religions inculcated important truths. We may 
discern the value of the moral and religious sentiments 
which they partially express and respond to. But the 
idea that any of those religions is the absolute reli- 



CHRISTENDOM AS AN EFFECT OF CHRIST. 369 

gion, or the religion revealed from Heaven to be the 
perpetual light of men, is dispelled the moment we 
find that the work wrought by them upon the human 
soul is one-sicled and defective, and that their final 
result is an arrested development. The individual is 
impelled forward to a certain limit. There he halts. 
Deterioration even may ensue. The nation feels a 
transforming agency for a time, but at length it 
reaches an impassable barrier. An imperfect civiliza- 
tion becomes petrified. Christianity, on the contrary, 
never appears to have exhausted its power. It moves 
in advance, and beckons forward the individual and 
the people who embrace it. When it is misconceived, 
in some respect, and a perverted development ensues, 
it contains in it a rectifying power. It forever insti- 
gates to reform : its only goal is perfection. 

We are not to forget, of course, that Christendom is 
something besides a religion. It is composed of par- 
ticular races ; races having distinctive traits, which 
have entered as one factor into the spiritual life and 
the civilization of this society of peoples. They have 
inherited from the past, especially from the Roman 
Empire and the cultivated nations of antiquity, invalu- 
able elements of polity and culture. The Teutonic 
peoples were specially hospitable to the religion of the 
gospel. They were docile, as well as strong. They 
had these native traits to begin with : they received 
much, besides the gift of Christian faith, from those 
whom they conquered. Yet it is Christianity which 
leavened all. It is Christianity which fused, moulded, 
trained, the European nations. It is in the light of 
Christianity that their vigorous life unfolded itself. In 
that light it still flourishes. 

Jesus Christ brought into the world a new ideal of 



370 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

man, — man individual and man social. This was not 
all. Had this been all, the condition of men might not 
have been materially altered. He brought in at the 
same time a force adequate to effect — though not magi- 
cally, but by slow degrees — the realization of this ideal. 
It is in this double character, — in the perfection of the 
moral ideal, and in the wonderful stimulus to the prac- 
tical realization of it, — that the transcendent superi- 
ority of the Christian religion is manifest. The sages 
of antiquity presented high though always imperfect 
conceptions of what man and society should be; but 
those conceptions remained inoperative. They did not 
avail for the elevation of many individuals even. Their 
effect on social and political life was small. Culture 
was attained by the intellectual and versatile Greek, 
but the ideal of manhood was faulty. There was no 
life-giving force to save the Greek from degeneracy and 
corruption. No more was there a saving power in 
the law and polity which Rome created. Neither 
Greek learning and philosophy, nor Roman politics and 
jurisprudence, could rescue mankind from degradation, 
or even avail to perpetuate themselves. 

With Christ there came in a nobler ideal and a force 
to lift men up to it. That force resided in Jesus him- 
self. The central thought of Jesus was religion, — man's 
relation to God. Take out this idea of man's true 
life as consisting in that filial relation to the heavenly 
Father, and the vital principle is gone from the system 
of Jesus. The sources of its power are dried up ; the 
root is dead, and the branches wither away. 

For with this idea is inseparably connected his esti- 
mate of the worth of the soul. Every individual, 
according to the teaching of Christ, has an incalculable 
worth. This does not depend on his outward condition. 



CHRISTENDOM AS AN EFFECT OF CHRIST. 371 

Lazarus, the beggar at the gate, was on a footing of 
equality with Dives at his luxurious table. To the 
surprise of the disciples, Jesus conversed with the peas- 
ant-woman at the well. What was a woman, and a 
poor woman, even a depraved woman, that the Master 
should waste time in order to enlighten her? Little 
children he took in his arms when the disciples " for- 
bade them." It was not the will of 'the Father that one 
of these little ones should perish. The transgressor of 
human and divine law, the male or female outcast — he 
saw in each something of imperishable value. With 
this idea of the worth of man, there is associated the 
recognition of every individual as an end in himself. 
No man is made merely to enhance the interests, or 
minister to the gratification, of another man. "Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" He is the greatest 
who serves most, in the spirit of self-sacrifice. For one 
man to use another man or a woman as an instrument 
of his own pleasure or advancement is an act of incon- 
ceivable cruelty and baseness. The equality of men 
as regards worth or value, be their talents, property, 
station, power, or condition in any particular, what 
they may, is a cardinal truth. It is an inference from 
their common relation, as creatures and children, to God, 
and from the common benefit of redemption, in which 
all alike share. In the community of God's children 
there was no distinction of bondman or freeman, rich 
or poor, male or female, Greek or Barbarian. All — be 
their nationality that of the strong and intellectual 
branches of mankind, or of those little esteemed ; be 
their lot among the prosperous or the unfortunate — 
stand on a level. They are " brethren." 

The Christian ideal embraced the sanctification of 
the entire life. It did not subvert established relations 



372 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

between man and man, as far as they were conformed 
to nature and right. It infused into them a new spirit. 
It set to work to purify the family and the state, and 
to raise each of these institutions to the ideal standard. 
Each was to be made to fulfil its true function, and to 
become an agent of the highest possible beneficence. 

One of the great changes which Christianity made, 
and is making, in the family, is the abolition of domes- 
tic tyranny. The authority of the father in ancient 
Rome, as in many other nations, was without limit. 
As far as restraints of law were concerned, he was a 
despot in the household. He had over its members the 
right to inflict death. From the time of the introduc- 
tion of Christianity, the authority of the father began 
to be reduced. The paternal prerogative, the patria 
2)otestas was curtailed in the Roman law in the second 
century. The Stoic ethical teaching contributed to 
this result, as to other humane reforms. How far the 
milder sentiments prevalent among the Stoics in the 
early Christian centuries were unconsciously imbibed 
from the gospel, which was already active in modifying 
the atmosphere of thought and feeling, is a question 
difficult to settle. This is certain, that Christian teach- 
ing from the beginning tended strongly to such a re- 
sult, and evidently, at a later date, had a powerful 
effect. The position of the wife in relation to the hus- 
band's will and control, the more Christianity gained 
influence, was wholly changed for the better. The free- 
dom of divorce which existed by Roman law and custom 
found in the precepts of Christ and in the teaching of 
the Church a stern rebuke. The wife could no longer be 
discarded in obedience to the husband's caprice. Mar- 
riage became a sacred bond, — a bond, except for one 
cause, indissoluble. Of the immeasurable influence 



CHRISTENDOM AS AN EFFECT OF CHRIST. 373 

which the religion of Jesus has exerted in shielding the 
purity of woman, it is needless to speak. The power 
which the unsparing injunctions of the Sermon on the 
Mount have exercised for the defence of the helpless and 
innocent against lawless passion, it would be impossible 
to estimate. As fast as Christianity spread, respect for 
the rights of woman extended. The more deeply Chris- 
tianity leavens society, the more does all unjust discrim- 
ination in laws and social customs, by which the rights 
and privileges of women have been abridged, disappear. 
The words of Jesus on the cross, when he committed 
his mother to the care of John, have inspired in all sub- 
sequent ages a tender feeling for the sorrows of woman. 
If reverence for the Virgin was at length exaggerated, 
and became a hurtful superstition, that unauthorized 
worship was connected with a sentiment towards the 
wife and mother which genuine Christianity fosters. 

The State is the second great institution having a di- 
vine sanction, and springing out of essential tendencies 
and needs of human nature. It is one of the most re- 
markable features of Christianity, and one of the marked 
signs that a wisdom higher than that of man was con- 
cerned in it, that from the first it asserted the inviola- 
ble authority of the civil magistracy. There was all 
the temptation that religious zeal could afford to cast 
off the rule of the State. This temptation was aggra- 
vated a thousand-fold by the circumstance that against 
the early Christians the civil powers arrayed themselves 
in mortal antipathy. Yet from the beginning the in- 
junction was to honor the ruler. Nay, he was declared 
to be the minister of God for the execution of justice. 
Civil government was affirmed to be a part and instru- 
ment of God's moral government of mankind. Chris- 
tians were to pray for the ruler at the very time when 



374 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

Nero was burning them alive. No priestly usurpation 
in later periods, when it was carried to its height, 
was ever able to obliterate from the Christian mind 
the feeling of obligation to obey the magistrate, and the 
conviction that the powers that be are ordained of God. 
Christianity exalted justice, and revered the State as 
its divinely appointed upholder between man and man. 
Christianity honored rightful authority, and recognized 
it as inhering in the rulers of a political community. 

At the same time, the religion of Christ brought in 
liberty. Wherever it has been understood aright, it has 
been the most powerful champion and safeguard of 
natural and political rights. In heathen antiquity the 
State was supreme, and practically omnipotent. The 
individual was absorbed in the political body of which 
he was a member. To that body he owed unlimited 
allegiance. There was no higher law than the behest 
of the State. Socrates is one instance of an individual 
refusing to obey a prohibition of the State, out of def- 
erence to the Divine Will. He would not promise to 
refrain from teaching when he might have saved his 
life by doing so. We meet here and there with a 
shining example of one who was ready to disregard a 
civil mandate which required of him some flagrant act 
of injustice. But these are exceptions that prove the 
rule. They are anticipations of a better era than ex- 
isted, or could exist, as long as polytheism was domi- 
nant, and while there was no broader form of social 
unity than the civil community. Christianity founded 
a new kingdom. It was a kingdom not of this world ; 
but it was a real sovereignty, which was felt to be 
supreme over all human enactments. The first preach- 
ers of the gospel were obliged to obey God rather than 
man. The early Christians had to disobey the laws and 



CHRISTENDOM AS AN EFFECT OF CHRIST. 375 

decrees of the Jewish and the Roman authorities. It 
was a new thing when prisoners who were brought 
before Roman prefects, and commanded to worship the 
image of the emperor, or to curse Christ, refused, and 
persistently refused, to do so. Such contumacy, such 
insubordination, struck these administrators of law as a 
marvel of audacity and of treasonable hostility to the 
supreme authority. By this means, through the higher 
allegiance to the revealed will of God which Christian- 
ity made a wide-spread, practical fact, the power of the 
state, up to that time virtually boundless, was cut down 
to reasonable proportions. The precepts of the State 
were subjected to the private judgment of the subject. 
The individual decided whether or not they were con- 
sistent with the laws of the King of kings. He in- 
quired whether they enjoined what God had forbidden, 
or forbade what God had enjoined. The eternal laws 
of justice and right, of which Sophocles wrote in the 
highest strain of Greek religious thought, became, in 
the Christian Church, the every-day, absolute arbiter of 
conduct. There might spring up a new despotism. 
There might grow up an ecclesiastical authority not 
less tyrannical than the State had been. But this could 
only be a temporary abuse and perversion. Christian 
truth could not be permanently eclipsed. Meantime, 
even in the days when ecclesiastical control over the 
individual was overgrown, it still afforded a most whole- 
some check to the unrestrained power of chieftains and 
kings. The Papacy, in the periods when it mistakenly 
strove to govern the laity with an absolute sway, and 
even to build up a universal monarchy of its own, a 
spiritual despotism, did, nevertheless, do a vast service 
in its unceasing assertion of a spiritual law above the 
will of any man, however strong, and the right of spir- 



376 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

itual ideas to prevail over brute force. Guizot, speak- 
ing of the period which ensued upon the fall of the 
Western Empire, says, "Had the Christian Church not 
existed, the whole world must have been abandoned 
to purely material force." 1 When Christianity had 
liberated the human mind from the yoke of secular 
power, it proved itself enlightened enough and strong 
enough to emancipate it from the yoke of the ecclesi- 
astical institution through Which, in great part, that 
deliverance had been achieved. 

Looking at the constitution of the State itself, we see 
plainly how Christianity has introduced, and tends to 
introduce, a just measure of political liberty, and a fair 
distribution of political power. The constitution of 
the Church as its Founder established it, the fraternal 
equality of its members, the mutual respect for opinion 
and preference which was enjoined, the forbidding of 
a lordship like that which existed in secular society — 
all tended strongly to bring analogous ideas and par- 
allel relations into the civil community. Liberty was 
prized by the ancients ; but what sort of liberty ? At 
Athens, the citizens were but a handful compared with 
the entire population. In Rome, citizenship was a priv- 
ilege jealously guarded by the select possessors of it. 
When, at last, political equality was attained, it was 
through the absolute rule of the emperors, after liberty 
had vanished. Christianity presents no abstract pat- 
tern of civil society. It prescribes no such doctrine 
as that of universal suffrage. But Christianity, by the 
respect which it pays to man as man, by its antipathy 
to unjust or artificial distinctions, by its whole genius 
and spirit, favors those forms of polity in which all men 
of competent intelligence, who have a stake in the well- 

1 Lectures on the History of Civilization, chap. ii. p. 38. 



CHRISTENDOM AS AN EFFECT OF CHRIST. 377 

being of the community, are allowed to have some voice 
in its government. So far, Christianity is not a neutral 
in the contests relative to political rights and privi- 
leges. As concerns natural rights, which are always 
to be carefully distinguished from political, the religion 
of Christ continually cries out against every violation 
of justice in the laws and institutions of society. The 
Golden Rule it holds to be not less applicable to those 
acts of the community which determine the relations 
of its members to one another than to the private inter- 
course of individuals. Who that examines the govern- 
ments of Christian nations to-day can fail to see what 
a mighty influence Christianity has already exerted in 
moulding civil society into a conformity with human 
rights and with the rational conception of equality ? 

Christianity fundamentally alters the view which is 
taken of international relations. Slowly, but steadily, 
it makes mankind feel that injustice is not less base 
when exercised between nation and nation than be- 
tween man and man. Prior to the Christian era, the 
more closely the members of a tribe or people were 
bound together, the more regardless they generally 
were of the rights and the welfare of all beyond their 
borders. Pretexts were easily found — very often they 
were not even sought — for enterprises of conquest 
and pillage. As intercourse increased, and commerce 
spread, there was required some mutual recognition 
of rights. Covenants were made, and sometimes were 
kept. Occasional glimpses of a better order of things, 
in which mankind should be regarded as a kind of 
confederacy, were gained by Stoic philosophers. Such 
ideas were now and then thrown out by rhetorical 
orators on politics and morals, like Cicero. But in- 
ternational law existed only in its rudiments. Selfish- 



378 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIO AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF 

ness was the practical rule of national conduct. Tl e 
strong domineered over the weak. Christianity subor- 
dinated even patriotism to the law of righteousness 
and human brotherhood. It insisted on the respon- 
sibility of the nation, in its corporate capacity, to God, 
the Father of all. It held up a nobler ideal for the 
regulation of nations in their mutual intercourse. It 
need not be said how much remains to be done in 
order that the Christian law should be even approxi- 
mately carried out. Yet the contrast between the 
Christendom of to-day and the spectacle presented by 
the tribes and nations of antiquity is like the contrast 
between winter and spring. In the middle ages, the 
Church, as an organized body, through the clergy, 
undertook to pacify contention, and curb the appetite 
for aggression. Vast good was accomplished, but a 
new species of tyranny incidentally came in. In mod- 
ern days, equitable treaties, amicable negotiations, and, 
above all, arbitration, are resorted to for the settlement 
of disputes, the redress of wrongs, and the prevention 
of war. Christianity does not absolutely forbid war, 
as it does not prohibit, but rather approves, the use 
of force for the maintenance of law within the limits of 
each community. But against all wars of aggression, 
against all wars which might have been avoided by 
forbearance and reasonable concession, the religion of 
Jesus lifts up a warning voice, which is more and more 
heard. A glance at the history of Christianity, and at 
the present condition of the world, makes it manifest 
that a mighty force is incessantly at work in the bosom 
of mankind, which promises at last to bring in an era 
when righteousness shall prevail in the dealings of the 
nations with one another, and men shall learn war no 



CHRISTENDOM AS AN EFFECT OF CHRIST. 379 

The work which Christianity has done in the cause 
of charity, of kindness and beneficence, constitutes a 
topic of extreme interest. There was charity before 
the gospel. Men were never brutes. There was com- 
passion ; there was a recognized duty of hospitality to 
strangers. Among the Greeks, Jupiter was the pro- 
tector of strangers and suppliants. There were not 
absolutely wanting combined efforts in doing good. 
Institutions of charity have not been entirely unknown 
in heathen nations. In China there have long existed, in 
the different provinces, hospitals for two classes, — for 
old people and for foundlings. In ancient times men 
were not indisposed to befriend their own countrymen. 
This was pre-eminently true of the Jews. Among 
the heathen, in various towns of the Roman Empire, 
physicians were appointed by the municipality, whose 
business it was to wait on the poor as well as on the 
rich. Yet, when all this is justly considered, the fact 
remains, that charity was comparatively an unmeaning 
word until Christianity appeared. Largesses bestowed 
on the multitude by emperors and demagogues were 
from other motives than a desire to relieve distress. 
Considerations of policy had a large part in such bene- 
factions as those of Nerva and Trajan for poor children 
and orphans. Nothing effectual was done to check the 
crime of infanticide, which had the sanction of philos- 
ophers of highest repute. The rescue of foundlings 
was often the infliction upon them, especially upon the 
females, of a lot worse than death. Gladiatorial fights 
— the pastime which spread over the Roman Empire in 
its flourishing days, and against which hardly a voice 
was ever raised — could not fail to harden the spectators, 
who learned to feast their eyes on the sight of human 
agony. 



380 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

From the beginning, the outflow of charity was natu- 
ral to Christians. God had so loved the world, that he 
gave his Son. Christ loved men, and gave himself for 
them. The Christian principle was love, and love was 
expressed in giving liberally to those in need. The dis- 
ciples at Jerusalem were so generous in their gifts to 
the poor of their number, that they are said to have 
" had all things in common ; " although other passages 
in the Acts prove that there was no actual communism, 
and Christianity never impugned in the least the rights 
of property. Wherever a church was established, there 
were abundant offerings regularly made for the poor, 
systematic provisions for the care of the sick, of orphans, 
and of all other classes who required aid. Gifts were 
poured out, even for the help of Christians in distant 
places, without stint. In the second and third centu- 
ries, there were scattered all over the Roman world 
these Christian societies, whose members were bound 
together as one family, each taking pleasure in reliev- 
ing the wants of every other. Through their bishops 
and other officers, there was a systematic alms-giving on 
a scale for which no precedent had ever before existed. 
Nor was it indiscriminate, or in a way to encourage 
idleness, as it too often was, even when the motive was 
laudable, in the middle ages. There is an exhortation 
of the Apostle Paul, in which the spirit of the gospel, 
as it actually embodied itself in the early Church, is 
impressively indicated. " Let him that stole steal no 
more : but rather let him labor, working with his hands 
the thing which is good, that he may have to give to 
him that needeth." 1 There were reclaimed thieves in 
the church at Ephesus. The apostle urges them to in- 
dustry in order that they may have the means of aiding 

i Eph. iv. 28. 



CHRISTENDOM AS AN EFFECT OF CHRIST. 381 

those in want. Nothing could better set before us the 
influence of the new religion. The Apostolic Consti- 
tutions, which disclose the rules followed among the 
churches as early as the Nicene age, ordain that the 
poor man shall be assisted, not according to his expec- 
tations, but in proportion to his real needs, of which 
the bishops and deacons are to judge ; and to be assisted 
in such a way as best to secure his temporal and spir- 
itual good. 1 It is added, " God hates the lazy." The 
exercise of discrimination, and of care not to foster idle- 
ness, is a frequent theme of exhortation during several 
centuries. Asylums for orphans, hospitals for the siclr, 
sprang into being under the auspices of the Church. 
In process of time noseomia, or hospitals for the dis- 
eased, including the insane, were founded in all tho 
principal cities, and even in smaller towns, and in somt 
country-places. Nor did the vast stream of benefactior, 
flow out for the help of Christians alone. When pests 
broke out, as at Alexandria in the third century, and 
somewhat earlier at Carthage, the Christians, under the 
lead of their clergy, instead of forsaking the victims of 
disease, or driving them from their houses, as the 
heathen did, showed their courage and compassion by 
personally ministering to them. The parable of the 
Good Samaritan had not been uttered in vain. Among 
the numerous recorded examples of charity to the 
heathen is the act of Atticus, Archbishop of Constan- 
tinople (A.D. 406-A.D. 426), who, during a famine in 
Nicea, sent three hundred pieces of gold to the presby- 
ter Calliopius. This almoner was directed to distribute 
it among the suffering who were ashamed to beg, with- 
out distinction of faith. Acacius, Bishop of Amida, 

i Const. Apost., iv. 5, iii. 4, 12-14. See Chastel's The Charity of the 
Primitive Churches, p. 79. 



382 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

about A.D. 420, persuaded his clergy to sell the gold 
and silver vessels of the church, that he might ransom 
several thousands of suffering Persian captives who had 
been taken by the Romans. On one occasion Chrysos- 
tom, passing through the streets of Antioch, on his way 
to the cathedral, saw a multitude of poor, distressed 
persons. He read to his audience the sixteenth chapter 
of First Corinthians. Then he described the blind, the 
crippled, and diseased throng which he had just seen, 
and proceeded to exhort his hearers to exercise towards 
their '•'brothers" the compassion which they themselves 
had need of at the hands of God. 1 " Christian charity 
extended over all the surface of the empire, like a vast 
tissue of benevolence. There was no city, no hamlet, 
which, with its church and its priest, had not its treas- 
ure for the poor ; no desert which had not its hospit- 
able convent for travellers. The compassion of the 
Church was open to all." 2 

These meagre references to the charitable work of 
the early Church may call to mind the miracle that 
Christianity wrought in penetrating the human heart 
with a spirit of kindness, the like to which the world 
before had never known. That same spirit, not always 
discreetly it may be, has been operative among Chris- 
tian nations ever since. It is ever detecting forms of 
human want and infirmity which have not been previ- 
ously noticed, and devising for them relief. No supe- 
rior prudence in administering charity, derived from 
social and economic science, could have ever called into 
being, nor can it ever dispense with, that temper of un- 
selfish pity and love out of which the charities of Chris- 
tian people, age after age, have continued to flow. In 
this feature of beneficence, the Christendom of to-day, 

i Opp., vol. iii. p. 248 seq. See Chastel, p. 159. 2 Cbastel, p. 304. 



CHRISTENDOM AS AN EFFECT OF CHRIST. 383 

contrasted with heathen society of any age, is like a 
garden full of fruits and flowers by the side of a desert. 

Christianity is the only known corrective of the evils 
out of which socialism arises. The enrichment of the 
few, and the impoverishing of the many, can be reme- 
died by no infraction of the right of property ; which 
would bring back barbarism. The only antidote is to 
be found in that spirit of beneficence which prompted 
Zaccheus to give half of his goods to feed the poor. 
That spirit, when it prevails, will dictate such arrange- 
ments between capitalist and laborer as will secure to 
the latter a fair return for his toil. It will check the 
vast accumulation of wealth in a few individuals. And 
the Christian spirit, as in ancient days, will inspire pa- 
tience and contentment, and a better than an earthly 
hope, in the minds of the class whose lot in life is hard. 

In speaking of the improvement of society through 
the agency of Christianity, it is natural for us to think 
of the two great scourges of mankind, — war and slave- 
ry. Iniquitous wars are undertaken in modern days. 
Yet, if we compare the motives that lead to warfare 
now with those which in ancient times filled the world 
with incessant strife, we cannot but perceive a vast and 
salutary change. The laws and usages of war have 
felt the humanizing touch of the gospel. The manner 
in which non-combatants are treated is a signal illustra- 
tion. Once they were at the mercy of the conqueror, 
who too often knew no mercy. Their lives were for- 
feited. Reduction to slavery was a mitigation of the 
penalty which it was lawful to inflict on them. A 
military commander who should treat his prisoners as 
commanders like Julius Ctesar, who were thought in 
their time to be humane, treated them, would be an 
object of universal execration. A like change has 



384 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

taken place, even as regards the property of a conquered 
belligerent. The extinction of a nationality like Po- 
land, even when arguments in favor of it are not wholly 
destitute of weight, is a dark blot on the reputation of 
the sovereigns or nations by whom it is effected. For- 
merly it would be the expected and approved result of 
a successful war. In the provisions now made for the 
care and cure of the wounded, for the health and com- 
fort of the common soldier, including the voluntary 
labors of devoted physicians and nurses, we perceive a 
product of Christian feeling. The Romans had- their 
soldiers' hospitals (yaletudinaria) ; but the vast and 
varied work of philanthropy in this direction which 
belongs to our time was something of which no man 
dreamed. 

Ancient slavery was generally the servitude of men 
of the same race as the master. It involved the forfeit- 
ure of almost all rights on the part of the slave. It 
was attended with a kind and degree of cruelty which 
the intelligence of the victims, and the danger of revolt 
resulting from it, seemed to require, if the system was 
to be kept up. In extensive regions it had the effect, 
finally, almost to abolish free labor, to bring landed 
property into the hands of a few proprietors, to ener- 
vate the Roman spirit, and thus to pave the way for the 
downfall of the empire through the energy of uncivilized 
but more vigorous races. Christianity found slavery 
everywhere. It preached no revolution ; it brought 
forward no abstract political or social theory: but it 
undermined slavery by the expulsive force of the new 
principle of impartial justice, and self-denying love, 
and fraternal equality, which it inculcated. From the 
beginning it counselled patience and quiet endurance ; 
but it demanded fairness and kindness of the master, 



CHRISTENDOM AS AN EFFECT OF CHRIST. 385 

brought master and slave together at the common table 
of the Lord, and encouraged emancipation. The law of 
Constantine (A.D. 321), which forbade all civil acts on 
Sunday, except the emancipation of slaves, was in keep- 
ing with all his legislation on the subject of slavery. 
It is a true index of the state of feeling which is mani- 
fest in the discourses of the eminent teachers of the 
Church of that period. Ancient slavery, and, after- 
wards, serfdom in the mediseval age, disappeared under 
the steady influence of Christian sentiment. The re- 
vival of slavery in modern times has been followed by 
a like result under the same agency. A century ago 
the slave-trade on the coast of Africa was approved by 
Protestant Christians. At first, after his conversion, 
John Newton, the pastor of Cowper, did not condemn 
it. But at length the perception dawned on his mind, 
and became a deep conviction, that the capture and en- 
slavement of human beings is unchristian. The same 
conviction entered other minds. It grew and spread, 
until, in the treaties of leading nations, the slave-trade 
has been declared to be piracy. This amazing change 
was not wrought by a new revelation. It was the 
effect of the steady shining of the light of Christian 
truth long ago recorded in the Scriptures. 

If it were practicable to dwell upon the varied con- 
sequences of the religion of Christ as they are seen in 
the actual state of Christian civilization, we should 
have to trace out the modifications of political science 
under the benign influence of the gospel, the trans- 
forming effect of Christian ethics in such departments 
us prison discipline and penal law, the new spirit that 
breathes in modern literature, which emanates from 
Christian ideas of human nature, of forgiveness, and of 
things supernatural, — a spirit which is vividly felt 



386 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

when one passes from the dramas of Shakspeare to the 
dramas of JEschylus, — the way in which the arts of 
music, painting, and sculpture, have developed new 
types of beauty and harmony from contact with the 
Christian faith, the indirect power of Christianity in 
promoting discoveries and inventions that conduce to 
health and material comfort, the softening influence 
of Christianity upon manners and social intercourse. 
But the topic is too broad to be farther pursued. 

To appreciate the magnitude of the results of Chris- 
tianity, one must bear in mind that they do not consist 
alone or chiefly in external changes. There is a trans- 
formation of thought and feeling. The very texture 
of the spirits of men is not what it was. The con- 
science and the imagination, the standards of judgment, 
the ideals of character, the ends and aims of human 
endeavor, have undergone a revolution. When a conti- 
nent, with its huge mountains and broad plains, is grad- 
ually lifted up out of the sea, there is no doubt that a 
mighty force is silently active in producing so amazing 
an effect. What is any physical change in comparison 
with that moral and spiritual transformation, not inaptly 
called " a new creation," which Christianity has caused ? 

Now, the total effect of Christianity which Christen- 
dom — past and present, and future as far as we can 
foresee the future — presents, is due to the personal 
agency of Jesus of Nazareth. It can even be shown to 
be contingent on a personal love to him which animated 
the Christians of the first centuries, and which still 
pervades a multitude of disciples who call themselves 
by his name. Had this bond of personal gratitude and 
trust been absent, this vast result could never have 
come to pass. The power of Christianity in moulding 
Christendom is undeniably owing to the religious and 



CHRISTENDOM AS AN EFFECT OF CHRIST. 387 

supernatural elements which are involved in the life, 
character, and work of Jesus Christ. Had he been 
conceived of as merely a human reformer, a teacher of 
an excellent system of morals, a martyr, the effect 
would never have followed. Subtract the faith in him 
as the Sent of God, as the Saviour from sin and death, 
as the hope of the soul, and you lose the forces without 
which the religion of Jesus could never have supplanted 
the ancient Heathenism, regenerated the Teutonic na- 
tions, and begotten the Christian civilization in the 
midst of which we live, and which is spreading over the 
globe. Men may doubt about this or that miracle in 
the Gospels, even though the testimony cannot be suc- 
cessfully impeached. The miracle of Christendom, 
wrought by Christ, is a fact which none can question. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY FROM A COMPARI- 
SON OF IT WITH OTHER RELIGIONS. 

Christianity is one of many religions which have 
existed in the world. They may be divided into three 
classes, — the religions of barbarian tribes, past and pres- 
ent ; the national religions, which have sprung up within 
a single nation or race, and have not striven for a 
farther extension; and the universal religions, which, 
not content to stay within national boundaries, have 
aspired to a general or universal sway. To this last 
class, Buddhism and Christianity unquestionably be- 
long. The religion of the Israelites, before it assumed 
the Christian form, had spread extensively among men 
of foreign birth ; and its adherents were zealous in 
making proselytes. Yet converts were partly or fully 
transformed into Jews, and incorporated with the race 
of Israel. Mohammedanism was at first the religion of 
one people, and at the outset it may not have been the 
design of its founder to extend it beyond the national 
limits. But the design was widened : it became a con- 
quering faith, and has, in fact, included within its pale 
numerous votaries of different nations and tongues. 

The study of pagan and ethnic religions has been 
carried forward, of late, in a more sympathetic spirit. 
Elements of truth and beauty have been carefully 
sought out in the beliefs and worship of heathen na- 
tions. Religious ideas and moral precepts which de- 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 



389 



serve respect have been pointed out in the ethnic 
creeds. The aspirations at the root of the religions of 
the heathen, the struggle of the soul to connect itself 
with the supernatural, and to realize ideals of an excel- 
lence above any present attainment, have been justly 
appreciated. This aspect of heathenism, it should be 
observed, however, is recognized in the New Testament. 
The Apostle Paul builds his discourse at Athens on 
the acknowledged ignorance of the Divinity, for whom 
there was, nevertheless, a search and a yearning. He 
cites the teaching of certain heathen poets as conformed 
to the truth on the great point of man's filial relation 
to the Deity. The Christian Fathers traced wise and 
holy sayings of heathen sages to rays of light from the 
Logos, — the Divine Word, — or to an illumination from 
the Spirit of God. Devout missionaries, in recent days, 
have been impressed with the conviction that individuals, 
of whom Confucius was one, have been providentially 
raised up to be the guides of their people, and to pre- 
pare them for better things. Points of affinit}^ and of 
accordance between the Bible and the sacred scriptures 
of peoples ignorant of Christianity, have not been over- 
looked by Christian scholars. Even the fables of 
mythology may betray glimpses of truth not capable 
of being grasped on the plane of nature. They may 
reveal a craving which Christianity alone avails to ap- 
pease, and may thus be unconscious prophecies of Him 
who is the desire of all nations. Even the Avatars of 
Vishnu, countless in number, indicate that through 
man the full revelation of God is looked for. They 
may be considered a presage, in a crude form, of the 
historic fact of the incarnation. 

Christianity differs from the other religions in its 
contents, and in the authoritative sanction which £'ives 



390 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

ground for certainty of belief. This last feature is of 
itself a distinguishing merit. If much that is taught 
by Christ and the apostles should be found here and 
there in the literature of the world, the supernatural 
sanction which changes hope into assurance, and doubt- 
ing belief into conviction, would be of itself an ines- 
timable advantage. In this place, it is the contents 
Of Christianity which we have to consider in compari- 
son with the tenets of other creeds. 

It is well, at the outset, to give prominence to the 
grand peculiarity of the Christian religion, which con- 
stitutes the central point of difference between it and 
the ethnic religions. Revelation is the revelation — the 
self-revelation — of God. The doctrine of God is 
the sun which illuminates the whole system, and keeps 
every part in its place. There may be excellent moral 
suggestions in heathenism. There may be partial, mo- 
mentary glimpses of the Divine Being himself in certain 
aspects of his character. But nowhere, save in the reli- 
gion of the Bible, and in systems borrowed from it, is 
there a full view of the perfections of God, — such a view 
as gives to moral precepts their .proper setting and the 
most effectual motive to their observance. This essential 
characteristic of Christianity the Apostle Paul held up 
to view in his discourse at Athens. There was worship 
— in its way, genuine worship — among the heathen, 
but an ignorance of its true object. In a few striking 
sentences the apostle presented to view the only living 
God, a Spirit, the Creator and Ruler of the universe, in 
whom we live, and to whom we are responsible. The 
whole conception of man, of his duties and destiny, 
and of the goal to which all things tend, is colored 
and determined by the primary ideas relative to God. 
What, let us now inquire, have other religions to say 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 391 

of him ? Heathen religions generally fail altogether to 
disengage God from nature. Hence polytheism is the 
prevailing fact. Whether the various religions carry 
in them traces of an earlier monotheism is a disputed 
point. Scholars are not agreed on the question; and a 
bias, on one side or on the other, frequently appears in 
the recent discussions upon it. As the existing diversity 
of languages is entirely consistent with the hypothesis 
of an original unity of speech, although the phenomena 
do not positively establish this doctrine, so it may be 
respecting religion. Vestiges of a primitive theism may 
have utterly disappeared, yet such may have been the 
religion of the primitive man. Certain it is, that, as 
we contemplate the religions which history and ancient 
literature exhibit to us, we find them at a distant re- 
move from a pure and spiritual apprehension of the 
Deity. Where there was a supreme God, other divini- 
ties divided power with him ; and none of them were 
conceived of as absolute, as independent of nature. 
Tien, or Shang-ti, the supreme God of the Chinese, was 
Heaven conceived of as Lord or sovereign Emperor. 
Dr. Legge, the learned translator of Confucius, holds 
that "Tien " signifies the Lord of the Heavens. He finds 
in the conception an early monotheism. This was not 
the understanding of the Roman-Catholic missionaries 
in the last century, nor is it the interpretation of the 
most competent missionaries at present. The testimony 
of Chinese authors, says Dr. Hopper, "is uniform and 
the same. Everywhere it is the visible heaven which is 
referred to." " They refer to an intelligent soul ani- 
mating the visible heaven, as the soul animates the 
body of a man." The religion of the Bactrian prophet 
Zoroaster was a dualism. An eternal principle of evil, 
a god of darkness, the source of every thing baleful and 



392 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

hateful, contends against the rival deit} r , and is never 
overcome. Max Midler has designated the religion of 
the Sanskrit-speaking Indians, the system of the Vedas, 
as henotheism, by which he means the worship of nu- 
merous divinities, each of which, however, in the act 
of worship, is clothed with such attributes as imply 
that the other divinities are for the moment forgotten, 
and which might logically abolish them. This is really 
polytheism with a peculiar monistic drift. But Pro- 
fessor Whitney, than whom there is no higher authority 
on the subject, dissents from this theory, and attributes 
the exalted attributes attached to the particular god 
at the moment of worship, mainly to a natural exagge- 
ration. Professor Whitney declares that " there is no 
known form of religious faith which presents a poly- 
theism more pure and more absolute than the Vedic 
religion." J Whether monotheism entered into the an- 
cient religion of Egypt is an unsettled debate. It is 
maintained by Renouf, that the Egyptian monuments 
and literature exhibit a mingling of monotheism and 
polytheism ; that there was a conception of one God 
with sublime attributes, — an idea connected, however, 
with the notion of a plurality of divinities and with 
debased superstitions. The sublime conception, Renouf 
contends, was the most ancient. Mr. G. Rawlinson 
takes the same position, holding that there was a purer, 
esoteric faith, the religion of the educated class, along- 
side of the polytheism and idolatry in which the multi- 
tude were sunk. 2 On the contrary, Lepsius thinks that 
the Egyptian religion took its start in sun-worship. 
Other ^Egyptologists would make sun-worship interme- 
diate between an earlier monotheism and polytheism. 

1 Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, torn. vi. (18S2), No. 5, p. 143. 

2 The Religions of the Ancient World, p. 29. 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 393 

The religion of the Greets, as all know, was a poly- 
theism in which there is a struggle towards unity in 
the lofty image of Zeus, as the father of gods and men, 
and as the fountain of law and right, which is found in 
the writings of Sophocles and of his contemporaries. 
Turning to a much later religion, — the religion of Mo- 
hammed, — we find passages in the Koran which imply 
not only a genuine faith in the Supreme Being, but 
also the ascription to him of certain exalted moral 
attributes. " Your God is one God : there is no God 
but he, the merciful, the compassionate." x Paradise is 
" for those who expend in alms in prosperity and adver- 
sity, for those who repress their rage, and those who 
pardon men. God loves the kind. Those who, when 
they do a crime, or wrong themselves, remember God, 
and ask forgiveness of their sins, — and who forgives 
sins save God? — and do not persevere in what they 
did, the while they know, these have their reward, — 
pardon from their Lord," etc. 2 

Passages like these, taken by themselves, would give 
a higher idea of Mohammed's system than a wider 
view warrants. Those other representations must be 
taken into account, in which the holiness of God is 
obscured, the prophet's fierce resentment is ascribed to 
the Lord, and a sensual paradise promised to the faith- 
ful. " And when ye meet those who misbelieve — 
then strike off heads until ye have massacred them, 
and bind fast the bonds. . . . Those who are slain in 
God's cause. ... He will make them enter into Para- 
dise." 3 But the higher elements in the religion of 



1 The Koran, Professor Palmer's translation, chap. ii. [150], (vol. i. 
p. 22). 

2 Ibid., c. iii. [125], [130], vol. i. p. 63. 

8 Ibid., chap, xlvii. [5], (vol. ii. p. 229). 



394 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

Mohammed, strongly as they seized upon his faith, did 
not begin with him. Kuenen argues that he knew little 
of Abraham, and that the identification of his creed 
with that of the patriarch, which is found in the Koran, 
was an afterthought. 1 However imperfect his knowl- 
edge of Abraham's history was, the name of the patri- 
arch was familiar to him. It is of more consequence 
to remember that his main tenet was the familiar belief 
of the Jews, which a circle of Arab devotees probably 
still cherished. The religion of Mohammed was a 
fanatical crusade against polytheism and idolatr}^, first 
among the Arabs, and then in the degenerate Christian- 
ity of the Eastern Church. The ultimate source of all 
that is good in Mohammed's movement is the Scrip- 
tures of the Old and New Testament, which he did not 
refuse to acknowledge, little as he really knew of their 
contents, and far as he was from comprehending the 
prophetic or Messianic element of the Old-Testament 
religion, or its fulfilment in the gospel. Mohammedan- 
ism is one grand idea of the Old Testament, the idea of 
God, with the attribute of holiness largely subtracted, 
and divested of the principle of progress which issued, 
in the case of the religion of Israel, in the kingdom of 
Christ, the universal religion of Jesus. 

History indicates that polytheism, whatever be its 
origin, tends, in the case of nations that advance in 
intelligence, to some species of monotheism. Professor 
Whitney finds " unmistakable indications of the begin- 
nings of a tendency to unity in the later Vedic hymns." 2 
The Groeco-Roman religion had resolved itself, in the 
mind of Plutarch and many of his contemporaries, into 
a belief in one Supreme Being, with a host of subordi- 

1 Kuenen, Natural Religions and Universal Religions, p. 12 seq. 

2 Revue, etc., p. 140. 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 395 

nate divinities. In the second century of the Christian 
era, under the influence of philosophy, God was con- 
ceived of as one Being ; and the minor deities were 
thought of, either as representing the variety of his 
functions, or as instruments of his providence. This 
was the mode of thinking in cultivated classes. The 
belief and rites of the common people remained unal- 
tered. But here a most important fact must be brought 
to the attention of the reader. We find that the ten- 
dencies to unification, although they may beget a sort 
of monotheism which lingers for a time, commonly issue 
in Pantheism. Nature still holds the spirit in its fet- 
ters. If it is not a multitude of deities, more or less 
involved in natural forces and functions, it is nature 
as a whole, figured as an impersonal agency, into which 
deity is merged. It was so in the ancient classical 
nations. The esoteric philosophy and theology did not 
remain deistic : it slid down into Pantheism. The reli- 
gions of India are a notable illustration of this apparent 
helplessness of the spirit to rise above nature, above the 
realm of things finite, to the absolute and personal 
Being, from whom are all things. One of the most 
learned and trustworthy of the recent expositors of the 
religions of India says, " India is radically pantheistic, 
and that from its cradle onwards." 1 When we examine 
the Brahminical religion as it was developed on the 
banks of the Ganges, we find a thoroughly panthe- 
istic system. Emanation is the method by which finite 
things originate. Brahma is the impersonal essence or 
life of all things : from Brahma, gods, men, the earth, 
'nnd all tilings else, proceed. This alienation from 
Brahma is evil. The finite soul can find no peace, save 
in the return to Brahma, — the extinction of personal 

i Bartli, The Religions of India, p. 6. 



396 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

• 

consciousness. The laws of Manu close with the senti- 
ment: "He who in his own soul perceives the Supreme 
Soul in all beings, and acquires equanimity towards all, 
attains the highest state of bliss." The Stoics, and 
Spinoza, and some of the sayings of Emerson, are an- 
ticipated in this Hindoo sentence. All the horrors 
of transmigration, and all the torments of Brahminical 
asceticism, have a genetic relation to this fundamental 
pantheistic tenet. Buddhism is the religion which at 
present is most lauded by those who would put Chris- 
tianity on the same general level with the heathen 
creeds. We may pass by the perplexing inquiry as to 
the life of its founder, as to what is history, and what 
is myth, in the narrative. That he was an earnest man, 
struck with a sense of the misery of the world, and 
anxious to do good, may be safely concluded. That he 
made large sacrifices of worldly good in pursuit of his 
benevolent purpose, is equally certain. That the moral 
precepts which he enjoined, and the moral spirit which 
he recommended and practised, are characterized by a 
benevolence not to be found in the same degree else- 
where outside of the pale of Christianity, is evident. 
Yet nothing can be better adapted to impress one with 
the immeasurable superiority of Christianity to hea- 
thenism in its best forms than a close attention to the 
Buddhistic system. 

What now, according to Buddha, or (Jakyamuni, j s the 
cause, and what the cure, of the ills of life ? His theory 
is embodied in the four principles: (1) Existence is 
always attended with misery; to exist is to suffer; 
(2) The cause of pain is desire, which increases with 
its gratification; (3) Hence the cessation or suppres- 
sion of desire is necessary ; (4) There are four stages in 
the way to this result, — four things requisite. These 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 397 

are, first, an awakening to the consciousness that to ex- 
ist is to be miserable, and to the perception that misery 
is the fruit of desire or passion ; secondly, the escape, 
through this knowledge, from impure and revengeful 
feelings; thirdly, the getting rid successively of all 
evil desires, then of ignorance, then of doubt, then of 
heresy, then of unkindliness and vexation. When the 
believer has reached the fourth stage, he is ready for 
Nirvana. What is Nirvana ? What is the blessed goal 
where all self-discipline reaches its reward ? It is the 
extinction of personal being. It is annihilation. That 
this is the doctrine of Buddha, scholars generally hold. 1 
The same scholars who declare this to be the outcome 
of the latest and most thorough investigations also find 
that Nirvana was held to be attainable in this life ; 2 
that is, this term was applied by early Buddhist teach- 
ers to the serenity which is reached by the saint here. 
But this does not imply that there is a continuance of 
individual being beyond death. 3 The most that is 
claimed by the most competent scholars for Buddha 
under this head is, that he steadily refused to give an 
answer to the question. 4 It is sometimes thought that 
transmigration is inconsistent with the denial that the 
soul is a substantial entity. But the pantheistic theory 
as seen in the Brahminical system, while it subtracts 

i See T. W. Rhys Davids's Art. Buddhism, Encyc. Brit., vol. iv. 
p. 434; Barth, p. 110; Tide's Outlines of the History of Religion, etc., 
p. 35; Koeppen, Die Religion d. Buddha, i. oOG; Edkius, Chinese Buddh- 
ism, p. 15. 

2 Rhys Davids's Lectures on Origin and Growth of Religion, etc., 
pp. 100, 253. 

;! Ilh.vs Davids's Lectures, etc., p. 101. 

4 "Orthodox teaching in the ancient order of Buddhists inculcated 
expressly mi its converts to forego the knowledge <>f the being or non- 
being of the perfected saint." — Oldenberg: Buddha, His Life, His 
Doctrine, His Order, p. 276. 



398 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

personality from the soul, may hold that the finite being 
which we call " the soul " may be embodied not once 
only, but an indefinite number of times. Yet to exist 
as distinct from the Absolute, or as self-conscious, is the 
evil of evils. But while Buddha may possibly have him- 
self held to the " vaguely apprehended and feebly pos- 
tulated ego" passing from one existence to another, — 
a doctrine found in the Sanskrit books of the North, 1 — 
the accepted doctrine of the sect was, that the Buddh- 
ist, strictly speaking, does not revive, but another in 
his place, — the "Karma," which is the re-union of the 
constituent qualities that made up his being. " Such 
is the doctrine of the entire orthodox literature of 
Southern Buddhism." 2 "Buddhism does not acknowl- 
edge the existence of a soul as a thing distinct from the 
parts and powers of man which are dissolved at death ; 
and the Nirvana of Buddhism is simply extinction." 3 
The Buddhist aspires to Nirvana, to the end that he 
may avert the pains of transmigration from another, 
his heir or successor. 

It is in this method of self-discipline, and in the 
tempers of heart which are inculcated, that the attrac- 
tive points of Buddhism are comprised. Chastity, tem- 
perance, patience, and, crowning all, universal charity, 
are to be earnestly cultivated as the indispensable 
means of redemption from the dread of transmigration 
and from the pains of existence. 

It is obvious where the merits of Buddhism lie, and 
how restricted is their "circumference. Buddha was not 
an antagonist of the traditional Brahminical religion. 
He set on foot no crusade against caste. We do not 

i Barth, pp. 112, 113. 

2 Burnouf, Introd., p. 507 (Barth, p. 112). 

3 Rhys Davids, Encyc. Brit., vol. iv. p. 434, where the proofs are given. 






CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 399 

know how far the caste organization was developed 
when Buddha taught. Whatever hostility there was 
to Brahminism and caste arose later. There is a com- 
mon family likeness between his doctrine and the 
contemporary speculations of the philosophy of the 
Brahmans. " Atheism, scornful disregard of the cultus 
and tradition, the conception of a religion entirely 
spiritual, a contempt for finite existence, belief in trans- 
migration, and the necessity of deliverance from it, the 
feeble idea of the personality of man," — these are 
among the features found in Buddhism and the Upani- 
shads. 1 

Buddha created a monkish system as blighting in its 
influence on intellectual development, and as adverse to 
the well-being of men, as any thing in the Brahminical 
creed or rite. This was an essential part of his system. 
Monasticism, as Kuenen has justly remarked, is an ex- 
crescence in the Christian system. The " Son of man 
came eating and drinking." " There could be no 
Buddhism without 'bhikshus' — there is a Christianity 
without monks." " That which in one case constitutes 
the very essence of the religion, and cannot be removed 
from it, even in thought, without annulling the system 
itself, is in the other case . . . the natural but one- 
sided development of certain elements in the original 
movement, coupled with gross neglect of others which 
have equal or still higher right to assert themselves." 2 

Buddha was the great apostle of Pessimism. He 
sought to point out a virtuous method of getting rid 
of existence. The Brahman sought to save himself: 
Buddha sought, also, to save others. But from what? 
From conscious existence. It is literally a s}'stem 
without God and without hope, save the negative hope 
i Bartb, p. 115. 2 Kuenen, p. 30G. 



400 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

of deliverance from personal life. He invited the 
victims of sorrow and terror to imitate him with the 
promise of — annihilation ! Contrast the invitation of 
Him who said, " Come unto me, all ye that labor and 
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest " ! This rest 
was in fellowship with him, bringing in it a commun- 
ion with the heavenly Father, without whom not a 
sparrow falls, who makes all things work together for 
good to them that love him, and opens the gates of 
heaven at last to the soul that has been trained by 
earthly service for the higher service and unmingled 
blessedness of the life to come. 

Buddhism, vigorous at its birth, "has been smitten 
with premature decrepitude. . . . Some are at times 
fain to regard Buddhism as a spiritual emancipation, 
a kind of Hindoo Reformation ; and there is no doubt 
that in certain respects it was both." But it created 
an institution " far more illiberal, and formidable to 
spiritual independence," than the caste sj'stem. " Not 
only did all the vitality of the Church continue in a 
clergy living apart from the world; but among this 
clergy itself the conquering zeal of the first centuries 
gradually died away under the influence of Quietism 
and the discipline enforced. . . . All boldness and true 
originality of thought disappeared in the end in the 
bosom of this spirit-weakening organization." 1 

What, then, is the real significance of Buddhism as 
an historical phenomenon? It is the most powerful 
testimony ever given to the burden that rests on human 
nature. From its millions upon millions of adherents 
there arises an unconscious cry for the help which their 
own system cannot furnish. Buddhism, in its inmost 
purport, is a part of the sad wail of humanity in its 
longing for redemption. 

i Barth, p. 137. 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 401 

Christianity received from its parent, the religion of 
Israel, the truth of a living, personal God, — a God not 
merged in nature, but the Author of nature. The per- 
sonality of God gives to man his true place. Man is 
a person; and religion, instead of being a mystic ab- 
sorption of the individual, is the communion of person 
with person. Immortality is personal. The guaranty 
and evidence of it is in the relation of man to God, and 
in the exalted position which is thereby conferred on 
man. This guaranty becomes a joyous assurance, when 
the believer is conscious of being spiritually united to 
Jesus Christ, and a partaker of his life. The great idea 
of the kingdom of God is the object of aspiration and 
of effort, — the goal of history. The life that now is, 
instead of being branded as a curse, is made a theatre 
for the realization of a divine purpose, and the vestibule 
of a state of being for which, when rightly used, it is 
the natural prelude. 

Through such characteristics as these, Christianity is 
fitted to be the religion of mankind. None of the 
systems which have aspired to this distinction has the 
remotest hope of attaining it. None of these systems 
contains a single element of value, which is not found 
in its own place in the Christian system : on the con- 
trary, there is nothing in Christianity which forms any 
permanent barrier to its acceptance by any race or na- 
tion. No other religion has in an equal degree proved 
its adaptedness to be the religion of the world. It ad- 
dresses itself, not to a single people, nor to any branch 
of the human race exclusively or specially, but to man- 
kind. The apostles were directed to carry it " to every 
creature." The idea of the brotherhood of the race 
becomes in Christianity a realized fact. Appealing to 
a common religious nature, a common consciousness of 



402 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

sin and of the need of help, a common sense of the 
burden of sorrow and mortality, and offering a remedy 
which is equally adapted to all, Christianity shows it- 
self possessed of the attributes of a universal religion. 
Being, on the practical side, a religion of principles, 
and not of rules, it enters into every form of human 
society and every variety of individual character, with 
a renovating and moulding agency. 

How shall the rise of such a religion be accounted 
for? We are pointed back to Hebrew monotheism. 
But here we meet with a phenomenon altogether 
unique, both in its origin and in its effects. That the 
doctrine of Moses was not derived from the religion of 
Egypt, scholars of every type of theological belief unite 
in affirming. The question whence Moses derived his 
idea of God, says Wellhausen, "could not possibly be 
worse answered than by a reference to his relations 
with the priestly caste of Egypt and their wisdom. 
It is not to be believed that an Egyptian deity could 
inspire the Hebrews of Goshen with courage for the 
struggle against the Egyptians, or that an abstraction 
of esoteric speculation could become the national deity 
of Israel." 1 "Amongst students of Israelite religion," 
says Kuenen, " there is not, as far as I know, a single 
one who derives Yahvism " — the worship of Jehovah — 
" from Egypt, either in the strange manner hit upon by 
Comte, or in any other." 2 "It may be confidently as- 
serted," says Renouf, " that neither Hebrews nor Greeks 
borrowed any of their ideas from Egypt." 3 The Deca- 
logue, which all, save critics of an extreme school, at- 
tribute without hesitation — in the substance of it, at 

1 Encyc. Brit., Art. Israel, vol. xiii. p. 400. 

2 National Religions and Universal Religions, p. &i. 
8 The Religion of Ancient Egypt p. 254. 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 403 

least — to Moses, commands the exclusive worship of 
Jehovah, and proves the spirituality of the conception 
by forbidding all images and representations of him. 
" In the post-Mosaic period," says Dillmann, " at least 
in the central sanctuary of the whole people, and in the 
temple of Solomon, the unrepresentable character of 
Jehovah through any image was a recognized principle. 
The worship of an image on Sinai (Exod. xxxii.), in 
the time of the judges, in the kingdom of the ten 
tribes, does not prove that a prohibition of image-wor- 
ship was not known, but only that it was very hard 
in the mass of the people, especially of the northern 
tribes, which were more under Canaanite influences, to 
bring this law to a recognition ; and for centuries, in 
fact, it was a subject of strife between a stricter and a 
laxer party, since the latter only forbade an image of 
a false god, the former forbade every image of Jehovah 
likewise." x The prophets Amos and Hosea do not 
insist on the exclusion of images, as if this prohibition 
were any thing new. We need not inquire whether 
the non-existence of other deities was expressly asserted 
in the Mosaic teaching or not. 2 Since Moses did not 
derive the idea of God from the Egyptian theology, 
both the historical records, and the probabilities of the 
case, testify that it was the God of the forefathers 
whose existence, and relations to the people, were by 
him brought home afresh to their consciousness. The 
entire work of Moses as a founder admits of no his- 
torical explanation, without the assumption of a higher 
religion before, such as, according to Genesis, belonged 
to the fathers; but such a higher religion necessarily 
implies personal media, or representatives. " Advances 

1 Die Biichor Exodus u. Leviticus, p. 209. 

2 On. this subject, see Oehler, ii. 166. 



404 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

in religion link themselves to eminent personalities ; 
and the recollection of them is commonly kept up in 
the people who come after who have been gathered 
into unity as sharers in common of their faith." 
Hence the narrative of the faith of Abraham derives 
a strong historical corroboration from the faith and 
work of Moses. 1 Whatever difference may exist on the 
question whether belief in the existence of other gods 
outside of Israel, inferior to Jehovah, lingered among 
the people after the age of Moses, all allow, that, as 
early as the eighth century, the conception of Jehovah 
as the only existing God was proclaimed by the 
prophets in the clearest manner. How unique was this 
monotheism ! Other nations somehow made room for 
the gods of foreign peoples. They brought them into 
the Pantheon, or they gave them homes within their 
own proper boundaries. Not so with Israel. Jehovah 
was God, and there was no other. And he was a holy 
God. In this grand particular, the conception was dis- 
tinguished from heathen ideas of divinity. How shall 
this idea of Jehovah, so peculiar and so elevated, be 
accounted for? The notion of a Semitic tendency to 
monotheism has a very slender foundation, and would 
lead us to expect the religion of Jehovah to arise in 
Babylon or Tyre as soon as among the people of 
Israel. 

If we leave the question of the origin of Hebrew 
monotheism, *how shall it be explained that it did not 
sink down, when it had once arisen, into Pantheism, as 
was the fact in other religions, — for example, in the 
religion of the Hindoos, and in the philosophy of the 
Greeks, which Lord Bacon calls "the pagan divinity"? 
How did this unique and extraordinary faith keep up 

1 See Dillmann, Die Genesis, pp. 228, 229. 



CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 405 

its vitality, age after age, in the presence of seductive 
types of heathenism, and in the midst of political dis- 
integration and ruin ? How came the light, when it had 
dawned, to go on increasing to the perfect day, instead 
of fading out, as elsewhere, in the gloom of night? 

Leaving these problems, too, unsolved, how was it 
that the Hebrew monotheism held within itself the seeds 
of so great a future ? Assailants of the Old Testament 
religion never tire of dwelling on the alleged narrow- 
ness of Jewish theology, and on the selfish and unsocial 
character of their religious theory. It cannot be denied 
that the consciousness of being a Chosen People often 
engendered an arrogant and intolerant spirit towards 
the nations less favored ; that is, the bulk of mankind. 
Yet what was the actual outcome ? It was the religion 
of universal love, of the equality of men before God, 
of the fatherhood of God, and the brotherhood of the 
race. It was the religion of Jesus. " By their fruits ye 
shall know them." The Old Testament was the one 
book with which Jesus was familiar. In the teaching 
of the Old Testament, the apostles were steeped. The 
originality of Jesus is not more marked, and his ad- 
vance beyond all previous doctrine, than is the organic 
relation of his instruction and work, of the type of 
character which he exemplified and enjoined, to the Old- 
Testament ideas. The God whom we worship, if we 
believe in God, is the God of Abraham and of Moses, of 
Samuel, of Isaiah, and of David, of Paul and of John, 
— even the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is 
no break in the unity of the religious consciousness 
from that fur remote day when Abraham believed in 
God, and was lifted above the life of sense by his 
communion with the Invisible. With this religious 
consciousness, the ethical development up to its con- 



406 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

summation in the impartial justice and unselfish love of 
man as man, which is the rule of Christ, is inseparably 
connected. With it is connected the ever-unfolding 
dictates and corollaries of this principle, by which 
wrongs and miseries are more and more discerned and 
lessened. 

How shall such a religion, founded on such a concep- 
tion of God, be accounted for? Who that believes in 
God can find it incredible that it springs from his rev- 
elation of himself, — a self-revelation, consummated in 
Christ? An examination of other religions, instead of 
shaking the faith of a Christian, tends to confirm it. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE RELATION OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM TO THE CHRIS- 
TIAN FAITH. 

The critical discussions which are rife in our times re- 
specting the Bible, the authorship of its various books, 
and the historical value and doctrinal authority of their 
contents, make it important to consider the bearing of 
these inquiries and debates on the Christian Faith. 
What is the relation of the collection of writings which 
we call the Bible to the religion of Christ ? How far is 
any particular doctrine on the subject of the Scriptures 
essential to a theoretical or to a practical reception of 
the gospel in its real import and just efficacy? Do the 
results of critical science imperil, or are they likely to 
imperil, the foundations on which Christianity, viewed 
as an experience of the soul, or as a body of beliefs 
concerning God and man, the life that now is, and the 
world hereafter, reposes ? 

So much is clear at the outset, that our knowledge of 
the historical and doctrinal parts of Christianity is de- 
rived almost exclusively from the Bible. The same is 
true of our knowledge of the origin and growth of that 
entire religious system which is consummated in the 
work and teaching of Christ and of the apostles. It 
is not less plain, that the nutriment of Christian piety 
is derived chiefly from the pages of Sacred Scripture. 
The instrumentalities of human teaching, the activities 
of the Church in building up Christian character, and the 

407 



408 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

rest of the manifold agencies through which the power 
of religion is kept alive in the individual and in society, 
draw their vitality from the Bible. The habit of resort- 
ing to the Bible for spiritual quickening and guidance 
is the indispensable condition of religious life among 
Christians. The practical proof of the inspiration of 
Holy Scripture — in some sense, which avails to dis- 
tinguish this volume from all other books known to 
men — is found in this life-giving power that abides in 
it, and remains undiminished, from age to age, in all 
the mutations of literature, and amid the diverse types 
and advancing stages of culture and civilization. The 
general proposition, that the Bible is at once the foun- 
tain of spiritual light and life, the prime source of reli- 
gious knowledge, and the rule of faith and of conduct 
among Christians, admits of no contradiction. 

But this general theorem does not cut off those 
special problems and distinctions which, with a view 
to precise definition and qualification, constitute bibli- 
cal criticism, as that branch of study is now understood. 
The traditional views which were handed down from 
the Church of the fourth century, through the middle 
ages, uncritical to some extent as those views were 
in their inception, could not possibly shun the scrutiny 
of a more searching and scientific era of human devel- 
opment. The liberty of thought which the Reforma- 
tion brought in was attended at the outset with a more 
discriminating and a more free handling of questions 
pertaining to the origin and character of the books of 
Scripture, as the example of Luther notably evinces. 
The separation of the Old-Testament apocrypha from 
the canon was one result of this more bold and enlight- 
ened spirit of inquiry. The exigencies of controversy 
with the Roman Catholics begot, among Protestants of 



BIBLICAL CRITICISM AND THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 409 

the next age, a more scrupulously conservative method 
of enunciating the doctrine respecting the inspiration of 
biblical books than the pioneers in the Protestant move- 
ment had adopted. The maxim, that " the Bible is the 
religion of Protestants," in opposition to the Tridentine 
principle of church authority, was so construed as to 
lay fetters upon the critical spirit among the Protestant 
theologians of the seventeenth century. More and more 
the rise of the scientific spirit — the spirit which pursues 
truth alone as its goal, casting aside every bias as tend- 
ing to blind the eye, and sifting evidence with an un- 
sparing rigor — could not fail to affect this department 
of knowledge. More and more this spirit of candid, and 
exhaustive and fearless investigation, which is the legi- 
timate child of the Protestant movement, insisted upon 
testing the prevalent impressions concerning the Bible 
and its various parts, by the strict rules that govern in- 
vestigation in every other province. Literary criticism, 
which concerns itself with the authorship and date of 
the several books, with their real or alleged discrepan- 
cies, and with the correctness of the received text ; 
natural and physical science, exploring the origin of the 
earth and of its inhabitants, and of the starry spheres 
above ; historical and archaeological study, exhuming 
relics of the past, and deciphering monuments of by- 
gone ages, — these branches of knowledge bring, each 
of them, conclusions of its own to be placed in juxtapo- 
sition and comparison with the Hebrew and Christian 
Scriptures. Biblical criticism was something inevitable. 
It sprang up within the pale of the Church. Its most 
valuable contributions have been made by Christian 
scholars. It is true that disbelievers in the divine mis- 
sion of Jesus, and even in the supernatural altogether, 
have sometimes devoted themselves to these inquiries. 



410 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

It is a blunder and an injustice, however, on the part of 
Christians, and a false boast on the part of their adver- 
saries, when, on either side, it is affirmed that biblical 
criticism, and the certified results of it, are principally 
due to efforts springing up outside of the Church, 
among opposers of supernatural religion. 

Enough has been said respecting the exalted function 
of Scripture to preclude misapprehension when we pro- 
ceed to remark that the Bible is one thing, and Chris- 
tianity is another. The religion of Christ, in the right 
signification of these terms, is not to be confounded 
with the scriptures, even of the New Testament. The 
point of view from which the Bible, in its relation to 
Christianity, is looked on as the Koran appears to 
devout Mohammedans, is a mistaken one. The entire 
conception according to which the energies of the 
Divine Being, as exerted in the Christian revelation, 
are thought to have been concentrated on the produc- 
tion of a book, is a misconception, and one that is pro- 
lific of error. 

1. The revelation of God which culminates in the 
gospel, so far from being a naked communication let 
down from the skies, is in and through a process of 
redemption. Redemption is an effect wrought in the 
souls of men and in human society. Christianity is a 
new spiritual creation in humanity. The product is 
" new creatures in Christ Jesus," — a moral transforma- 
tion of mankind. Jesus said to his disciples, " Ye are 
the light of the world ... ye are the salt of the earth." 
From them was to go forth an illuminating, renovating 
power. Seeing their good works, attracted by their 
spirit, other men were to be brought to the Father. 
The brotherhood of Christian believers was the dwell- 
ing-place in which the living God made his abode : they 



BIBLICAL CRITICISM AND THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 411 

were his " house," as the temple was his house under 
the former dispensation. 1 They are expressly declared 
to be the " temple " of God, in which his Spirit abides. 2 
The " pillar and ground of the truth " — that which 
upholds the truth in the world, and is like a founda- 
tion underneath it — is the Church. It is not said to 
be books which had been written, or which were to be 
written, but the community of faithful souls. 3 A so- 
ciety had been brought into being, — a people of God, 
with an open eye to discern spiritual things. A vine- 
stock had been planted, the branches of which, if they 
did not dissever themselves, would bear fruit. 

2. Revelation is historical : the means of revelation 
are primarily the dealings of God with men. The reve- 
lation of God to the Hebrew people was made through 
the providential guidance and government which deter- 
mined the course of their history. When the sacred 
writers — as the authors of the Psalms, or inspired 
orators like the protomartyr Stephen — speak of divine 
revelation, they recount the ways in which God has led 
his people, — the separation of Abraham, the disclosure 
of God in the history of the patriarchs who followed 
him, the manifestation of God in the deliverance from 
bondage in Egypt by the hand of Moses, in the leading 
of Israel through the wilderness, in the conquest of the 
land which they inhabited, in the various instances of 
national prosperity and national disaster which followed. 
Events had been so arranged, signal rewards had been 
so made to alternate with signal chastisements, that 
God was more and more brought home to their minds 
and hearts in his true character. The nations generally 
valued their divinities for the protection and help which 

i Hob. iii. 2, 5, x. 21 ; 1 Pet, iv. 17, cf. Ephcs. ii. 22. 
a 1 Cor. iii. 10 ; 2 Cor. vi. 1(J. 3 1 Tim. iii. 15. 



412 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

they afforded. This was the ordinary heathen view. 
Under the divine training of the Israelites, they rose to 
a higher and altogether different conception. National 
downfall, and what seemed utter ruin, did not signify 
that Jehovah was powerless. These calamities were 
the chastisement inflicted on them by God himself. It 
was not that God was overcome by stronger powers : it 
was he himself who had brought on them defeat and 
exile, and the desolation of their altars and homes. 
Hence they were moved to cling to him all the closer. 
They were saved from complete despair. They could 
believe that God might not have utterly forsaken them. 
They ascended to a higher point of view. * They learned 
to contemplate God both as holy, as actuated by ethical 
motives in his government, as just to punish, and mer- 
ciful to spare and to forgive the contrite, and as the 
Ruler, not of themselves alone, but of the whole earth. 
The thread of his all-governing purpose and will ran, 
not through the history of Israel alone, but through 
the fate and fortunes of all nations. By experiences 
of actual life under the providential sway of God, their 
knowledge of him expanded, their communion with 
him became more intimate and more intelligent. A 
father discloses himself to his children by his man- 
agement of them from day to day, and from year to 
year. His smile rewards them. He frowns upon them 
when they go astray. They are trained to confide in 
him. They know him more and more as they live 
under his care, and witness the manifestation of his 
qualities in the successive periods of their lives. The 
didactic element is not wanting. The father teaches, 
as well as guides and governs. Explanation, admoni- 
tion, — it may be, outpourings of grief and affection, — 
are intermingled with the instruction contained in act 



BIBLICAL CRITICISM AND THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 413 

and deed. His dealings with them are not left to be 
misinterpreted. Their purport is made clear, if need 
be, by verbal elucidation. They are intermingled with 
counsel and command. Somewhat after this manner, 
in the course of the history of Israel, " the servant " of 
the Lord, not only were heroes raised up providentially 
to lead armies, and administer civil affairs, but holy 
men were called upon the stage to make known the 
meaning of the doings of God, to point the presumptu- 
ous and the desponding to the future, to give voice to 
the spirit of prayer and praise which the character of 
God, and his relation to them, should appropriately in- 
spire. Prophets, with vision clarified by light shining 
into their souls from above, expounded the providential 
dealings of God, read aloud his purposes discovered in 
them, commanded, warned, and consoled in his name. 

If we turn to the revelation of God in the gospel, we 
observe the same method. It is an historical manifesta- 
tion. A child is born at Bethlehem, and brought up at 
Nazareth, consecrated by baptism in the Jordan, col- 
lects about him a company of chosen followers, lives in 
intercourse with men, performs miracles of healing and 
deliverance, dies, and re-appears from the grave. He 
teaches; and his teaching is indispensable to the effect 
to be produced, ahd is most precious. But his own per- 
son and character, his deeds of power and mercy, his 
death for the remission of sins, his resurrection, ascen- 
sion, and continued agency through the Spirit — it is 
in these facts and transactions that the gospel centres. 
They are the material, the vehicle, of revelation. The 
didactic element is to unfold their intrinsic significance. 
It is to insure against misunderstanding, and to impress 
on the hearts and minds of men the inherent meaning 
of these deeds of God in human history. 



414 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

3. The persons and transactions through which reve- 
lation is made, one must remember, are anterior to the 
Scriptures that relate to them. The Apostle Paul 
traces back the line of God's people to Abraham and 
to the faith that sprang up in his soul. This faith of 
Abraham preceded, of course, every record of it, and 
every thing that was written about it. There could be 
no narrative of divine judgments and deliverances, and 
of their effect on the religious consciousness of the peo- 
ple, prior to the occurrences in question and to the 
observation of their result. As fast as sacred literature 
arose, its influence would be more or less felt ; but this 
literature presupposed and rested on a progressive reli- 
gious life and on the historical forces which fostered as 
well as originated it. The great fact of the old dispen- 
sation, its palpable outcome, was a people imbued with 
the spirit of a pure theism, separated from the heathen 
world by the possession of an exalted faith in God, and 
of a great hope of redemption inseparably conjoined 
with it, — a people bearing witness to God in the midst 
of the pagan world. In like manner, the Church of 
the new covenant preceded the New-Testament writ- 
ings. Jesus himself wrote nothing. As far as we know, 
at the date of his ascension, nothing respecting him had 
been put in writing. His words, his miracles, the things 
that he suffered, his resurrection, were unrecorded. 
Not less than a score of years ma}^ have passed before 
those first essays at recording what the disciples knew 
respecting his life, which Luke notices in his prologue, 
were composed. The oldest writings in the New-Testa- 
ment collection are certain Epistles of Paul, which were 
called out by his necessary absence from churches, or 
by special emergencies. Yet the Christian faith was 
in being; the Church was in being; the Gospel was 






BIBLICAL CRITICISM AND THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 415 

preached; the testimony of the apostles was spread 
abroad; numerous converts were made. Christianity 
was not made by the Christian Scriptures. 

4. On the contrary, the Scriptures are the product of 
the Church. They do not create the community : the 
community creates them. The histories of the Old 
Testament record the progress and fortunes of the peo- 
ple. The historians are of the people to which their 
works relate. The prophets, with whatever divine gifts 
of insight and foresight they are endued, spring, in like 
manner, out of the people. The fire that spreads along 
the earth, here and there shoots upward, and sends its 
light afar. The psalm is the inspired expression of the 
devotion of the great congregation gathered within the 
temple. Even the Proverbs have an origin and a stamp 
among the Chosen People which make them analogous 
to the proverb elsewhere : " the wisdom of many, and 
the wit of one." 

As the Gospels were for the Church, so they were 
from the Church. Apostles and their disciples com- 
posed them to meet a want in the community in which 
the authors were members as well as guides. The Epis- 
tles were the product of the Church, as well as means 
of its edification. Their authors were moved by the 
same Spirit, with whatever difference of mode and of 
measure, as the membership among whom they ranked 
themselves as brethren. There was not even an inten- 
tion to compose a body of sacred literature. The pur- 
pose of Providence went beyond the writers' intent. 
The very word " Bible," denoting a single book, results 
from a blunder. A Greek word, in the plural, signify- 
ing originally " books," it was mistaken in the middle 
ages for a Latin noun of the first declension singular. 
It was not until the oral teaching of the apostles was 



416 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

beginning to be forgotten, and their immediate disci- 
ples were passing away, that the churches bethought 
themselves to gather together in a volume the writings 
of the apostles, and writings having an apostolic char- 
acter. The canon was of slow and gradual formation. 

The foregoing remarks may throw some light on the 
question how Christianity stands affected by biblical 
criticism. The Christian faith is expressed in a sum- 
mary form in the ancient document known as the Apos- 
tles' Creed. In its doctrinal aspect, the Christian faith 
was formulated early in the fourth century, in the creed 
called the Nicene, which, as regards its main affirma- 
tions, has received the sanction of most organized bodies 
of Christians. Neither of these confessions make any 
declaration respecting those particular questions, rela- 
tive to the origin of books and the kind and degree of 
authority that pertains to them, which furnish the lead- 
ing topics of biblical criticism. They are silent on the 
subject. It is Christianity in its facts and principles 
which they undertake to set forth. This does not im- 
ply an undervaluing of the importance of the question 
of the inspiration and authority of the Bible. It illus- 
trates, however, the point that the Christian S} r stem 
of truth is separable in thought from varying phases of 
opinion relative to the origin and characteristics of the 
Scriptures. 

The consideration of divine revelation as having for 
its end the building up of a community or kingdom, 
and as made through the vehicle of a history transacted 
on the earth, lifts us upon a plane where critical prob- 
lems, within a certain reasonable limit, may be regard- 
ed with comparative indifference. Within that limit, 
literary questions having to do with the authorship of 
books-, as, for example, whether it be simple or com- 



BIBLICAL CRITICISM AND THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 417 

posite, and whether traditional impressions as to au- 
thorship are well founded ; questions having to do, 
also, with the correctness of the text which has been 
transmitted to us ; questions as to the order of succes- 
sion in the stages through which the community of God 
has passed ; questions as to the accuracy of details in 
historical narratives — are no longer felt to be of so vital 
moment. They are not points on which the Christian 
religion stands or falls. . The timidity which springs 
out of the idea of Christianity as exclusively a book- 
religion, every line in the literature of which is clothed 
with the preternatural sanctity ascribed by Mohamme- 
dan devotees to their sacred writings, is dissipated. 
The Christian believer, as long as fundamental verities 
and the foundations of belief on which they stand are 
unassailed, is no more disturbed by the disclosure of 
the human factor in the origination of the Scriptures, 
and by finding that it played a more extensive part 
than was once supposed. The treasure is not lost be- 
cause it is distinctly perceived to be held " in earthen 
vessels." 

This is not the place to enter into a discussion of the 
critical questions connected with the Old- Testament 
books, and of their contents. Yet, on this topic, a single 
observation may be made, which will serve still further 
to elucidate the meaning of what has been said above. 
The observation is, that the religion of Christ stands in 
an organic relation to the Old-Testament religion, and 
that this relation, in its most essential features, is an 
historical fact that admits of no rational doubt, be the 
views taken of the Old-Testament literature what they 
may. The people that gave birth to Jesus Christ 
were a people marked by distinctive peculiarities, which 
are well known, abundantly attested, and universally 



418 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

allowed to have existed. They were worshippers of 
one God, a living God, a Spirit, the Creator and sole 
Sovereign of the universe. Along with this peculiar, 
exalted theism there had come to exist the Messianic 
expectation. There was to be a great expansion, purifi- 
cation, triumph of the kingdom of God, — the commu- 
nity of his worshippers. There was to be a deliverance, 
a world-wide extension of the true religion. These are 
acknowledged facts. How did that state of things 
come to be ? How did that peculiar community grow 
into being, which furnished the human and temporal 
conditions of the birth and career of Jesus? How shall 
we explain that he was born of Israel, and not of the 
Greeks or Egyptians? There is no dispute on the 
question whether there is a close, organic connection 
between the religion of Palestine and the religion of 
Christ. It is a fact too patent to be doubted for a 
moment. 

Back of that peculiar religion, and that whole state of 
things which existed in the Palestinian community and 
its foreign offshoots at the time when Jesus was born, 
there lies a history. So vast and spreading a tree is not 
without deep roots. It is perfectly obvious that the 
Old-Testament books are the principal, if not the exclu- 
sive, documents from which we can acquaint ourselves 
with the rise and progress of that unique religion which 
was the precursor and parent of Christianity. From 
them we must learn who were the human leaders, civil 
and religious, through whose mediation that religion 
advanced from its beginnings, and attained to the de- 
velopment which it is found to have reached at the 
approach of the Christian era. Now, inquiries may be 
started as to the order of succession in the laws and 
in the institutions of worship, which were not always 



BIBLICAL CRITICISM AND THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 419 

the same, and even as to what precisely was done and 
contributed by this or that inspired leader or teacher. 
These questions do not necessarily touch Christianity 
in any vital part. They do not necessarily affect in 
any substantial degree the view that is taken of the 
history of the people of Israel. Investigations of 
Roman history, even when they require the modifica- 
tion of previous ideas, do not alter fundamentally our 
conception of the growth, the polity, and the power of 
the Roman Empire. They only make still clearer the 
ruling ideas that animated the Roman people. The 
history of England is not written now as it was written 
a hundred years ago ; but the existence of the English 
monarchy, and the turning-points in its origin and 
growth, are left untouched by the scrutiny of historical 
criticism. 

One of the questions which has occasioned, since the 
beginning of this century, much debate, is that of the 
authorship of the Pentateuch, — whether it emanates, 
as a whole or in part <^and, if in part, to what extent), 
from the pen of Moses. Even the critics who carry the 
theory of a non-Mosaic authorship to the extreme of 
denying that the decalogue, in the form in which it 
stands, proceeds from its reputed human author, do not, 
as a rule, call in question the fact that Moses was the 
founder of the legislation and religious institutions of 
the nation of Israel. Reuss, one of the most learned 
of the critics of this type, emphatically declares 1 that 
the agency of Moses was of so influential and far- 
reaching a character, that in the whole course of the 
history of Israel, prior to Jesus, there appeared no per- 
sonage to be compared with him. He towers above all 
that followed in the long line of heroes and prophets. 
1 Geschiolite <1. heiligcn Schriften d. A. T., vol, i. 



420 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

On any view that does not pass the bounds of reason, 
" the law came by Moses." The recollection of the 
leadership of Moses, of his grand and dominating 
agency in the deliverance of the people from bondage, 
and in laying the foundations of their theocratic polity, 
was indelibly stamped upon the Hebrew mind. To 
discredit a tradition so deeply rooted in the generations 
that followed would be a folly of incredulity. It might 
almost be said that the voice of the great Lawgiver 
reverberates down the subsequent ages of Hebrew his- 
tory, until the appearance of Him whose teaching ful- 
filled, and in that sensesu perseded, the utterances of 
them "of old time." Ewald has dwelt impressively 
on the living memory, the memory of the heart, trans- 
mitted from father to son, of the great redemption from 
Egyptian slavery, — the standing type of the mighty 
spiritual deliverance to be achieved by a greater than 
Moses. If Moses was in reality so effective an agent 
in forming the Israelitish nation, and in shaping its 
peculiar system ; if, in truth, so* powerful an impulse 
emanated from him as Reuss allows, the question is 
naturally suggested, whether there would be wanting 
(since the art of writing was then well known) contem- 
porary records, and something from the pen of Moses 
himself. If there is nothing improbable in the state- 
ment that he was learned in all the wisdom of the 
Egyptians, then it is surely to be expected that he 
would, to some extent, have committed his laws and 
injunctions to writing. If so, it cannot be regarded as 
unlikely that what he thus composed constitute, an im- 
portant part, to say the least, of the materials of the 
Pentateuch. But these are critical inquiries upon 
which we are not called on here to dilate. 
Jn defining the attitude which tlje Christian believer 



BIBLICAL CRITICISM AND THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 421 

may reasonably take in relation to biblical criticism, 
there are two or three considerations which deserve 
to be specially insisted on. It is now assumed that the 
evidences of the supernatural mission of Jesus, and of 
his miracles, have produced the conviction which they 
warrant. It is obvious, in the first place, that so far as 
critical theories spring from the rejection of the super- 
natural, either as in itself impossible, or as having no 
function in connection with the religion of Christ, 
those theories have no weight. They are vitiated by 
the bias which lies at their root. They proceed upon 
an unscientific, because disproved, hypothesis, that the 
religion of the Bible is a purely human product. When 
it is denied that a particular author wrote a certain 
book, or that it was written at a certain date, or that 
incidents related in it are true, or that predictions in 
it were made, and this denial depends simply on the 
a priori disbelief in the supernatural, it is of no value, 
and, to a Christian believer, will carry no weight. A 
theory respecting the matters just enumerated may be 
broached by one who disbelieves in the resurrection of 
Jesus, and it may be sound, although it contravenes 
traditional opinion ; but as far as that theory involves, 
as a presupposition and a conditio sine qua non, the de- 
nial or doubt of the resurrection, it is worthless. This 
criterion at once disposes of a mass of critical specu- 
lation about the literature of the Bible and its con- 
tents, which has no more solid foundation than the 
arbitrary assumption that a miracle is impossible, or 
that Christianity is not from God in any other sense 
than is true of Buddhism. Belief in Christianity as 
coming supcrnaturally from God, does not justify one 
in dispensing with critical investigation, which, it need 
not be said, in order to be of any value, must be 



422 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

prosecuted thoroughly and in a candid and truth-loving 
spirit. Neither does it justify one in disregarding the 
canons of historical judgment, for the reason that par- 
ticular features of a narrative are miraculous, and that 
miracles are possible, and have actually taken place at 
points along the line of divine revelation. An historical 
religion must verify itself, not only in general and as a 
whole, but also in its various parts, to the historical 
inquirer. That is to say, from the general truth, when 
once established, of the supernatural origin of the reli- 
gion of the Bible, the strict verity of all the facts 
recorded in it, whether natural or supernatural, cannot 
at once be logically concluded. The tests of historical 
criticism must be applied as well to details as to the 
system as a whole. 

Does it comport with the essentials of Christian belief 
to hold that deception may, in any instances, have been 
used in connection with the authorship of books of 
Sacred Scripture? For example, can it be admitted 
that what is known in ecclesiastical history as "pious 
fraud " had a part in the framing of scriptural books ? 
For instance, is it consistent to allow that an author 
may have palmed off a book, historical or didactic, as 
the production of an honored man of an earlier time ? 
In answer to these questions, it is to be said at the 
outset, that the supposition of an intended deception 
ought not to be allowed without satisfactory proof. It 
cannot be safely asserted that the author or authors of 
the apocrj^phal book of Enoch, which is referred to in 
Jude (ver. 14), and no part of which goes back farther 
than the age of the Maccabees, meant that readers 
should believe Enoch, "the seventh from Adam," to 
have been the writer. It may be in this, as no doubt it 
was in other cases, a mode of giving dignity and weight 



BIBLICAL CRITICISM AND THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 423 

to lessons which the real author thought would be less 
efficacious if put forth in his own name, but which he 
cast into this form with no intent to have them believed 
to be productions of the elder time. At the same time, 
we should be cautious about assuming that a refine- 
ment of ethical feeling equal to that which Christianity 
develops and demands, existed at all periods under 
the ancient dispensation. If there was, in general, an 
inferior stage in the development of conscience, it is not 
incredible, that, even in holy men, there was a less deli- 
cate sense of truth and a less sensitive observance of 
the obligation of strict veracity. , How far it may have 
pleased the Divine Being to allow this lack of moral 
discernment to affect the literary activity, as we know 
that it affected in other provinces the personal con- 
duct and judgment, of holy and inspired men, we can- 
not a priori — at least, not with absolute confidence — 
determine. Every thing must yield at last to the fair 
verdicts of a searching but reverent scholarship, which 
explores the field with the free and assured step of a 
Christian believer. 

This brings us to the further remark, that the author- 
ity of Christ and of the apostles, once established by 
convincing proofs, is decisive. Nothing that clashes 
with that authority, when it is rightly understood and 
defined, can stand. The evidence against any critical 
theory, which, if admitted, would be in collision with 
the authority of Jesus and of the apostles, would tell 
with equal force against the fundamental faith of a 
Christian. While this is to be borne in mind, it is 
equally necessary to avoid erroneous interpretations of 
their teaching, as far as it bears on literary and critical 
questions in connection with the Scriptures, their au- 
thorship and contents. A dogmatic utterance on such 



424 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

points, on the part of the Saviour or of the apostles, is 
not to be hastily inferred from references and citations 
which may not have been intended to carry this conse- 
quence. Not less essential is it to avoid an incautious, 
unverifiable extension of the teaching function which 
was claimed by Jesus for himself, and was conveyed by 
him to the apostles. The incarnation, in the deeper 
apprehension of it which enters into the evangelical 
theology of the present time, is perceived to involve 
limitations of the Saviour himself in statu humiliationis, 
which were formerly ignored. A stricter exegesis does 
not tolerate the artificial exposition, which was once in 
vogue, of passages which assert or indicate such a re- 
striction, voluntary in its origin, during the period 
when the Lord was a man among men. It must be 
made clear that the Lord intended to declare himself 
on points like those to which we have adverted, and 
that, directly or by implication, he included them within 
that province which he knew to belong to him as a re- 
ligious and ethical teacher, and in which he spoke as 
" one having authority." 

If so much must be admitted by the most reverent 
disciple respecting the Great Teacher himself, surely not 
less must be said of the apostles. How far peculiarities 
of education, traditional and current impressions re- 
specting the topics involved in biblical criticism, were 
left untouched, but continued to influence them, — not 
only while they were with Jesus, but also when the 
Spirit of inspiration qualified them to go forth as 
heralds in his service, — can be settled by no a priori 
dictum, but only through processes of careful study. 
The sooner the wise words of Bishop Butler are laid to 
heart by Christian people, the better will it be for their 
own peace of mind, and for the cause of Christianity in 



BIBLICAL CRITICISM AND THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 425 

its relation to doubters and- in its conflict with foes. 
" The only question," says Butler, " concerning the 
truth of Christianity, is whether it be a real revelation, 
not whether it be attended with every circumstance' 
which we should have looked for ; and, concerning the 
authority of Scripture, whether it be what it claims to 
be, not whether it be a book of such sort, and so pro- 
mulged, as weak men are apt to fancy a book contain- 
ing a divine revelation should be." 1 

The apostles were empowered to understand and to 
expound the gospel. The real purport and end of the 
mission, the death, the resurrection, of Jesus, were 
opened up to their vision. His words, brought back to 
their remembrance, unfolded the hidden meaning with 
which they were laden. The relation of the anterior 
dispensation to the new era, the one being anticipatory 
of the other, they, if not instantly, at least gradually, 
saw into. Thus were they qualified to lead, and not to 
mislead, to teach and to guide the Church. But not 
only were they men of like passions with ourselves, but 
in knowledge they had no part in omniscience. That 
which inspiration made clear to them was not made 
clear instantly and all at once. He who was not be- 
hind the chief of the apostles placed himself among 
those who now "see through a glass, darkly," and 
waited for the full disclosure of truth which should 
supersede his dim and fragmentary perceptions. 

There is an order of things to be believed. Before 
the scriptures of the New Testament, Christ was 
preached and believed in : so now, prior to minute in- 
quiries, and the exact formulation of doctrines, about 
the canon and inspiration, Christ is offered to faith. 
The grand outlines of the gospel, both on the side of 
1 See also the context, Analogy, p. ii. c. iii. 






426 THE GROUNDS OF TflEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

fact and of doctrine, stand out in bold relief. They 
are attested by historical proof. They are verified by 
evidences which are irrespective of many of the topics 
of theological debate and of biblical criticism. The 
recognition of Christ in his character as the Son of 
God and Saviour of men, is the prerequisite for enga- 
ging successfully in more remote and difficult inquiries 
respecting the literature and the history of revealed 
religion. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT IN ITS RELATION 
TO THE CHRISTIAN FAITH.i 

By the canon of the New Testament is understood 
the books, collectively taken, which have authority 
among Christians as regulative of belief and conduct. 
The word " canon " signified at first a rule, or measur- 
ing-rod. It* was applied in the Church to the brief 
creed or summary of Christian truth, which, in some- 
what varying form, as early as the closing period of the 
second century, was recognized as including the essen- 



1 Only a few words can here be said respecting the canon of the Old 
Testament. Its three departments comprised: (1) The Thora, or Penta- 
teuch; (2) The Prophets, embracing the historical books from Joshua to 
2 Kings (inclusive), Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and -the twelve " Minor 
Prophets;" (3) the Hagiographa, comprising all the remaining books 
usually considered by Protestants canonical. These three collections 
were made, as scholars now generally hold, separately and succes- 
sively. Josephus, about A.D. 100, in his vindication of Jewish history 
against the aspersions of Apion, declares (I. 8) the number of books 
which are by his countrymen "justly believed to be divine" to be 
twenty-two. It is clear that he includes all of our Old-Testament ca- 
nonical books, and no others. His method of combining books — he reck- 
ons, for example, the two books of Kings as one — reduces the total 
number to twenty-two. That this was the canon received by his Pales- 
tinian contemporaries in the age of the apostles may be safely in- 
ferred. There are several references in the New Testament to things 
recorded in tho apocryphal books; but none of these books are spoken 
of in terras to imply that they were classified among the authoritative 
writings referred to above. The whole subject of the authorship and 
date of the several books of the Old Testament, and of the collection 
of them into the canon, pertains to a distinct branch of theological 
science, — the Introduction to the Old Testament. 

427 



428 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTTC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

tials of the common faith, — the regula fidei as it was 
styled. The word "canon" was first used to designate 
the Holy Scriptures, in the fourth century, by the cele- 
brated Alexandrian Father, Athanasius, who speaks of 
this definite body of writings as " canonized," that is, 
as accepted ; this acceptance being a part of the canon, 
or rule of faith. Subsequently " canon " acquired the 
sense which it now holds, and was used by the Latin 
Fathers to denote the books, which, to the exclusion of 
all others, regulate Christian belief and teaching. 

On what principle, by what method, and at what 
time, was it ascertained what books the canon of the 
New Testament should comprise ? How far is the tra- 
ditional determination of this question to be relied on ? 
If there are disputes or serious doubts respecting par- 
ticular books, what bearing have these questions on the 
Christian faith? Do they, or do they not, affect its 
foundations? 

1. It is obvious, that, if we do not acknowledge the 
infallible authority of the Church of Rome, the ques- 
tions pertaining to the canon must be determined by 
historical inquiry. The weight to be attached to tra- 
dition and to ancient opinion must be decided by the 
same method. There is no other course that is open to 
a Protestant. No verdict on these points has come 
down from any ancient council having an oecumenical 
character. Such a verdict, if it existed, could not 
govern the opinion of a consistent Protestant, since 
general councils were capable of error. 1 We must look 
at the evidence, external and internal, on which the 
claim of each book to apostolic authorship or apostolic 
authority rests. 

2. Even a cursory attention to ancient ecclesiastical 

1 See Article XXI. of the Thirty-nine Articles of the English Church. 



THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 429 

history shows that the eahon was of slow and gradual 
formation. While the apostles were living, their oral 
teaching excited most interest. Their writings were 
supplementary to their oral instruction. 1 These writ- 
ings would circulate, to a certain extent, from church 
to church. In some cases the apostles would direct 
that a letter should be sent to other churches by the 
church to which it was immediately addressed. 2 It 
was only when the apostles had left the world, and the 
void made by their absence was felt; when heretical 
leaders, like Marcion and Valentinus, brought in novel 
and obnoxious doctrines ; when sectaries began to alter 
the writings of the apostles, or forge books in their 
name ; when, therefore, the churches felt the necessity 
of guarding the legacy of apostolic teaching, and draw- 
ing together, for the security of the faith, in a more 
compact, defensive fellowship, — it was only when this 
new state of things arose, that collections began to be 
made, here and there, of books known to be apostolic 
and authoritative. The Old-Testament scriptures had 
been received from the beginning, and publicly read, in 
the assemblies of Christians. Justin Martyr (about 
A.D. 150), who stands intermediate between the " apos- 
tolic Fathers," who had seen the apostles face to face, 
and eminent writers, like Irenseus, of the next following 
generation, tells us that the Gospels (the "Memora- 
bilia," composed by the apostles and their companions), 
were read on the Lord's Day in the churches in city 
and country. Justin was an opponent of Marcion who 
was a sincere but one-sided partisan of Paul ; and Mar- 
cion, we are told, framed a canon of his own, embracing 

i Rom. i. 10, xv. 3, 28; 1 Cor. iv. 17, xi. 2, 23; Col. ii. 7; 2 TheSB. ii. in, 
etc. 

2 Col. iv. 1G. 



430 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

a mutilated edition of Luke's Gospel, with ten Epistles 
of his favorite apostle ; the Pastoral Epistles and the 
Epistle to the Hebrews not being included in his list. 
Justin gives evidence, incidentally, of an acquaintance 
with the leading Epistles of Paul, especially Romans, 
First Corinthians, Colossians, Second Thessalonians, 
and with the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Apocalypse 
he mentions by name, ascribing it to John the Apostle. 1 
It is safe to infer that the custom of bringing together 
the apostolic writings into a volume was springing up. 

The Syrian canon is, perhaps, the oldest example of 
collections of this kind. Its date is not later than the 
closing years of the second century. It was the Bible 
of the Syrian Christians of that day. The ancient 
manuscripts of this version comprise the books in our 
canon, with the exception of Second and Third John, 
Second Peter, Jude, and the Apocalypse. How shall 
the omission of these books be accounted for ? Prob- 
ably, if known to the Syrian churches, they were not 
considered genuine ; for, if held to have been written 
by apostles, they would not have been excluded. Their 
absence does not prove that they did not exist, or that 
they are spurious ; but it is one fact to be considered, 
in conjunction with all the rest of the evidence bearing 
on the case, in determining these questions. 

In the company of the Syrian canon belongs the 
nearly contemporary Old-Latin version. It was the 
Bible of the North- African churches, where Christianity 
had been early planted, and had greatly flourished. In 
it, originally, there were not found the Epistle of James 
and Second Peter, neither of which appears to have any 
Latin testimonies in its favor prior to Hilaiy, Jerome, 

1 See Westcott, History of the Canon (5th ed.), 171; cf. Charteris, 
Cauonicity, p. cxviii. 



THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 431 

and Rufinus, in the fourth century. 1 Thus we see 
that James, while known and acknowledged in the 
Syrian churches, had not found its way into this 
Old-Latin canon; and we see that the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, which in some parts of the Church was placed 
among the apostolic writings, is not acknowledged by 
the Africans. Before Tertullian, however, that is prior 
to A.D. 190, this Epistle was added to their list. . 

The Muratorian canon, which can hardly be later than 
A.D. 170, is probably of Roman origin, and probably 
represents the canon in use among Western churches 
at the time of its composition. It is a fragment ; but it 
contained the four Gospels, and most of the writings in 
our canon. It omits James, First and Second Peter, 
Third John, and the Hebrews. It mentions an Apoca- 
lypse of Peter, with the remark that some will not have 
it read in the churches. The Shepherd of Hermas, 
it says, may be used for private reading, but not pub- 
licly. It has been conjectured that the document is 
imperfect, and that James, Hebrews, and First Peter 
may have stood in the list ; there being no other evi- 
dence that First Peter was ever disputed, and since 
Hebrews and James, which are supposed to have been 
then known to the Roman Church, are not mentioned, 
even in the way of exclusion. 2 The mention of the 
Shepherd of Hermas indicates the line of distinction 
that was more and more drawn between canonical writ- 
ings and those merely having a high repute for their 
edifying quality. The allusion to the Apocalypse of 
Peter indicates the criticism that was exercised, and 
shows a disposition to weed out apocryphal writings. 

i See Westeott, p. 258. The case of Second Peter we refer to later. 

2 See Westeott, p. 210. A different view on this question is still not 
without its advocates. See Professor B. B. Warficld's elaborate essays 
(Southern Presbyterian Review, January, 1882, April, IS.Sii), who thinks 
that this Epistle was used eveu by Clement of Uomo (circa A.D. 97). 



432 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

Prior to the date assigned to the Muratorian canon, 
there is no distinct trace of Second Peter. The Epis- 
tles of James and of Jude, Hebrews, and Revelation, 
are received in some places, but not in others. No 
strict lines are drawn about a canon, nor are its criteria 
and boundaries a theme of controversy or of ecclesias- 
tical action. 

Of the leading ecclesiastical writers, Irenseus, Bishop 
of Lyons (about A.D. 190), born in Asia Minor, and a 
representative of the churches in Gaul, contains no 
passages implying the use of James, Third John, Second 
Peter, Jude, or Philemon ; nor did he attribute the 
Epistle to the Hebrews to Paul, or treat it as authori- 
tative. 1 All the other books in our canon are recog- 
nized by Irenseus. Clement of Alexandria, a contem- 
porary, does not recognize as canonical James, Second 
Peter, 2 and Third John. The Epistle to the Hebrews 
he ascribes to Paul, but suggests that it was turned 
into Greek by Luke. Tertullian has no knowledge of 
Second Peter, or Second and Third John : he ascribes 
Hebrews to Barnabas, and puts it, with First Peter and 
Jude, into the second grade of apostolic writings. 3 
There are few traces of the use of First Peter in the 
Latin Church prior to Tertullian. This Epistle was 
written to Christians in Asia Minor. Origen, the most 
scholarly of the Fathers living in the next age (he 
died A.D. 254), is not inclined to ascribe the Epistle 
of James to the Lord's brother ; he doubts the authori- 
ty of Jude ; he does not recognize Second and Third 
John or Second Peter; he finds in Hebrews the doc- 

1 See Westcott, p. 384. Cf. Schmidt, in Herzog and Plitt's Beal- 
Encykl., Art. Kanon d. N. T„ p. 459. 

2 On Clement in relation to Second Peter, see "Westcott's Discussion, 
pp. 250, 258, Charteris, lxxxii. 

8 Cf. Schmidt, p. 459. 



THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 433 

trine of Paul, but leaves the problem of its authorship 
undetermined. In the East, as late as Chrysostorn (who 
died A.D. 407), we find that the canon of the Peshito 
is still accepted. He does not quote the four omitted 
catholic epistles, and makes no mention of the Apoca- 
lypse. 

It must be remarked here, that the early writers, in 
some instances, attribute a special sanctity and authori- 
ty to certain books written by apostolic Fathers. These 
books were sometimes read in churches. They are 
found, in several cases, connected with manuscripts of 
the New Testament. There were three books which in 
particular were objects of special veneration. One of 
these was the Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corin- 
thians. It is quoted by Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, 
and by Origen, in terms which imply an extraordinary 
estimate of its value. It was read in the Church of 
Corinth, and in other churches. It is found, but placed 
after the Apocalypse, in the Alexandrine manuscript of 
the Greek Bible. The Epistle of Barnabas, an epistle 
written by an unknown author, near the beginning of 
the second century, who delights in the allegorical 
exegesis of the Old Testament, enjoyed a high repute, 
especially at Alexandria. It is referred to by Clement 
and Origen as an authoritative writing, its author being 
styled by Clement " the Apostle Barnabas ; " and it is 
a part of the Sinaitic manuscript. The Shepherd of 
Hennas, another writing of the second century, is 
quoted as "Scripture" by Iren&us: it is placed by im- 
plication on a level with the apostolic writings. It is 
considered by Origen to be inspired ; although he states, 
that, though used in the Church, it is not regarded by 
all as sacred, and by some is contemned. It was rep- 
robated by Tertullian, who declares that it had been 



434 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

adjudged apocryphal and false by every council, ortho- 
dox or heretical. 1 It is included, however, in the Sina- 
itic manuscript and in Latin Bibles. Notwithstanding 
the anathema of Tertullian, founded on certain doctrinal 
objections, the Shepherd maintained its popularity for a 
long time afterwards. 

These three books won this peculiar esteem, partly 
from the nature of their contents, and partly from the 
idea — which was true in regard to Clement's Epistle 
— that they were composed by pupils of the apostles. 
Both of these considerations were blended, since the 
Epistle of Polycarp and the Epistles of Ignatius were 
never raised to this level. It is evident, however, that 
inspiration was not always conceived to be strictly con- 
fined to the circle of the apostles. It might naturally 
be thought to extend to the helpers who stood in close 
connection with them. It deserves to be remarked, 
that neither of the three writings itself lays claim to 
apostolic authority. The Epistle of Clement is couched 
in a strain of somewhat imperative admonition, espe- 
cially in the concluding portion, which has lately been 
brought to light. But the name of Clement does not 
appear. It is a letter from the Church of Rome to the 
Church of Corinth. There is no design to exceed the 
limits of paternal exhortation. In the Epistle ascribed 
to Barnabas the name of Barnabas does not occur. Its 
allegorical treatment of the Old Testament, as was be- 
fore remarked, would commend it to favor in the com- 
munity where the style of interpretation introduced by 
Philo transmitted itself to the Christian schools. The 
Epistle of Hernias was written during the time of Pius, 
bishop of Rome from A.D. 139 to A.D. 154. The 
author was conjectured by Origen to be the Hernias 

1 De Pudicitia, 10 ; cf . 20. 



THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 435 

mentioned by Paul in the Epistle to the Romans. But 
it was the character of the book, which was made up 
of visions, that chiefly secured for it so high esteem. It 
has been compared, as to the pleasure with which it 
was read, to the Pilgrim 's Progress, although its author 
was intellectually at a world-wide remove from the 
genius of Bunyan. 

We come now to instructive statements of Eusebius 
in his Church History, which was completed in A.D. 324 
or A.D. 325. In addition to observations in different 
places on the authorship and standing of scriptural 
books, there are two passages in which he speaks more 
at length on the subject of the canon. 1 He divides the 
books claiming to be authoritative into three classes. 
The first, the Homologoumena, comprises the univer- 
sally acknowledged books. The third class, called 
Spurious, comprises those received by none ; that is, 
heretical and apocryphal works, such as the Acts of 
Paul, the Apocalypse of Peter, etc. The second class — 
the Antilegomena, or disputed b'ooks — comprises those 
which were received by some, but not by all. Making 
up this second class from the various passages in Euse- 
bius, we find it to be composed of the Epistle of James, 
Jude, Second Peter, Second and Third John, — which 
he tells us were recognized by most, — also, the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, and the Apocalypse. Eusebius himself 
thinks that Paul was the author of a Hebrew original 
of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which some other, proba- 
bly Clement of Rome, rendered into Greek. Respecting 
the Apocalypse, he gives no decided opinion. Hermas, 
in one place, he ranks with the third class, — the spu- 
rious writings: elsewhere he states that his book is 
considered by some most necessary to such as need 

1 H. E. iii. 25, iii. 3, 24. See also ii. 23, iii. 16. 



436 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

elementary instruction in the faith. Towards the close 
of the fourth century Jerome accepts as canonical all of 
the books in our New-Testament canon. The diversity 
between First and Second Peter he would explain by 
the supposition that the apostle employed different "in- 
terpreters." But Jerome brings out the difference of 
opinion that existed among his contemporaries. Some 
held tnat James did not write the Epistle to which his 
name is attached. Most people thought that Second 
Peter was not the work of the apostle. Many attrib- 
uted Second and Third John to the Ephesian presby- 
ter of the same name. Jude, on account of its reference 
to Enoch, had, for the most part, no authority. As to 
Hebrews, he remarks, that among the Romans it is not 
attributed to Paul. Augustine accepts the canon of the 
New Testament as it now stands, although he appears 
to doubt the Pauline authorship of Hebrews. Finally, 
at the third synod of Carthage (in A.D. 397), where 
Augustine was present, the canon of the New Testa- 
ment was fixed at its present limits. 

Had this judgment respecting the Antilegomena been 
the pure result of critical investigation, it might be 
considered conclusive. But even Jerome, and still more 
Augustine, was not governed so much by critical 
arguments as by a disposition to acquiesce in what 
had become the more general usage of the Church. 
Through the middle ages the debate slumbered. With 
the revival of learning it was unavoidable that it should 
be renewed. The question about the seven disputed 
books was revived. Erasmus, the foremost scholar in 
the later period of the Renaissance, maintains that the 
Epistle to the Hebrews was not written by Paul. He 
thinks that James wrote the Epistle which bears his 
name, but expresses his surprise, that on these problems 



THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 437 

none " are more bigoted in their assertions than those 
who cannot tell in what language it was originally 
written." "We are reckless," he adds, "in proportion 
to our ignorance." 1 The Second and Third Epistles of 
John he ascribes to a second John, — John the Pres- 
byter, the supposed contemporary of the apostle at 
Ephesus. He enters fully into a statement of reasons 
against the opinion that John wrote the Apocalypse, — 
a book which he will not accept save on the authority 
of the Church. Possibly there is a tinge of sarcasm in 
this last utterance. 

Jerome among the ancients, and Erasmus among the 
moderns, stimulated the critical studies of the reform- 
ers. Luther expresses, with characteristic freedom, his 
opinions on the disputed books. He places the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, James, Jude, and the Apocalypse, at 
the end of his translation. In the Preface to Hebrews 
he says, " Up to this point, we have the right certain 
Capital Books of the New Testament. The four follow- 
ing, however, have had of yore a different standing 
(ansehen)." The Epistle to the Hebrews was written 
by a disciple of the apostles, an excellent, learned man, 
whose book deserves all respect, although " wood, hay, 
or straw may be mingled in it; and it must not, indeed, 
be put on the same footing with the apostolic Epistles." 
Jude, he says, is a book worthy of praise, but not to be 
ranked with the Capital Books, which lay the "founda- 
tions of the faith, since the author shows that he is a 
disciple of the apostles, and appeals to sayings and 
narrations that are nowhere found in Scripture. He 
admires the Epistle of James, and holds it to be good; 
but as it teaches the law rather than Christ, and gives 
righteousness to works, it is no apostle's writing. "It 
i Nov. Test., p. 625. 



438 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

is the work of some good, pious man, who perhaps 
caught up some sayings from disciples of apostles, and 
threw them on paper." Compared with the writings of 
John, Paul, and Peter, it is an epistle of straw (eine 
recht stroherne Epistel). Of the Apocalypse, Luther 
judged still more unfavorably : its contents, he thought, 
disproved the idea that an apostle wrote it. 1 

Calvin speaks of the First Epistle of John, and takes 
no notice of the Second and Third Epistles of John. In 
like manner, he leaves untouched the Apocalypse. The 
Epistle to the Hebrews he accepts as an apostolic Epis- 
tle ; although he denies that Paul wrote it, and credits it 
to a disciple of the apostles. Of Second Peter, he says, 
that, since the " majesty of the Spirit of Christ " is 
exhibited in it, he hesitates to reject it wholly, and is 
inclined to attribute it to one of Peter's disciples. 
James he sees no reason to reject ; and Jude he will not 
discard, since it is useful to read, and contains in it 
nothing at variance with the purity of apostolic doc- 
trine. 

It is common to criticise the opinions of Luther on 
the various books of the New Testament as being " sub- 
jective " in their character. But, if this be a ground of 
censure, Calvin is hardly less at fault. Tyndale is also 
in the same condemnation with Luther. In his first 
edition, the English translator presents twenty-three 
books which he numbers, and then adds, without num- 
bers, Hebrews, James, Jude, and the Apocaylpse. In 
a later edition he is silent upon the Apocalypse, but 
judges of the other disputed books more favorably than 
Luther. Yet, while not pronouncing on the authorship 
of Hebrews, he declares it to be "holy, godly, and 

1 The passages relative to the canon are collected in Walch's ed. of 
Luther's Writings, Theil xiv. 



THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 439 

catholic," and not to be refused ; and says of the 
Epistle- of James, that though its authorship has been 
doubted, and "though it lay not the foundation of the 
faith of Christ," it still ought to be received as Holy 
Scripture. 1 Before censuring the reformers on this 
score, it must be considered, that, in judging of the 
authorship of books, their internal character, as well 
as the external testimonies, must be taken into view. 
Moreover, it is common to credit the early Church with 
the possession of a certain tact which helped to distin- 
guish apostolic or inspired compositions from other 
works on a humbler level. If there be such a tact, it 
can hardly be confined to any one age of the Church : 
it may belong to a reformer as well as to a father. Be- 
sides, the Protestant theologians and the Protestant 
creeds made much of the " testimonium spiritus sancti," 
or the impression which the Scriptures themselves make 
of their peculiar elevation and divine origin. This im- 
pression is the feeling or judgment of the individuals 
who are brought into contact with the contents of the 
Bible in its various parts. Luther discriminated be- 
tween the several books of the Bible : some were more 
essential, some were better, than others. He said of 
John's Gospel and his First Epistle, of Paul's Epistles 
(especially the Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians), and 
the First Epistle of Peter, that they "are the books 
which show thee Christ, and teach all which is needful 
and blessed for thee to know, even if thou shouldst 
never see or hear any other book or any other doc- 
trine." From the four evangelists, and the principal 
undisputed Epistles of Paul, he grasped the gospel in 
its essential principles, and experienced it in its life- 
giving efficacy. From the point of view thus attained, 
1 The passages may be found in Westcott, p. 497. 



440 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

he weighed the value of all other writings transmitted 
in the canon, and, without neglecting the external proofs, 
judged of their authorship. Their internal conformity 
or disconforrnity to the spirit of the principal books 
went far towards determining in his mind the question 
whether or not they emanated from apostles. 

The method of Luther is parallel to the ordinary 
procedure in literary criticism. By the study of the 
main, undisputed Dialogues of Plato, a student ac- 
quaints himself with the style, spirit, and tenets of that 
author. By thus entering into the mind of Plato, he 
gets a criterion which is used to determine his judgment 
on the authenticity of Dialogues which are thought to 
be open to question. He pronounces them to be, or not 
to be, Platonic. The method is legitimate. Yet the 
criterion is fallible. The subjective impression may be 
faulty. Thus, for example, Zeller rejects the Laws, in 
the teeth of the testimony of Aristotle. A wider view 
of the philosophical system, or a more just estimate of 
the particular book in question, might reverse the critic's 
unfavorable verdict. 

While the method of Luther's procedure in judging 
of the canonicity of books is not so exceptional, or so 
obnoxious, as it has sometimes been pronounced to be, 
it is another thing to assent to all of his applications 
of it. The Epistle to the Hebrews, which he is disposed 
to refer to Apollos, he justly appreciates. Traces of 
the use of this Epistle are found in Clement of Rome 
— that is, before the end of the first century — and in 
Justin Martyr. The doubts about its right to a place 
in the canon sprang from disbelief in its Pauline au- 
thorship. But if it proceeded, as the preponderance of 
critical authority, both ancient and modern, decides, 
from some man of as high consideration as Apollos, 



THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 441 

whose name Paul associates witli his own as one of the 
founders of Christianity (an origin which its wide ac- 
ceptance at an early day would indicate) ; if its author 
is imbued with the essential principles of Paul; if, more- 
over, in elevation of style and of thought, it is raised 
above all the sub-apostolic literature, as the common 
judgment of the Church has recognized, — then, equally 
with the writings of Luke and of Mark, it is entitled 
to stand among the documents possessed of normative 
authority, even though it is not esteemed precisely 
as it would be, had an apostle written it with his own 
hand. The Epistle of James, which was a part of the 
old Syriac canon, is too well attested to be rejected 
on account of a type of doctrine somewhat varying, 
though not discordant, from that of Paul ; especially 
since its doctrine is in consonance with all that we 
know, from other sources, of James, the presiding elder 
at Jerusalem. The Apocalypse lacks the testimony of 
the Peshito ; but, with this exception, its external proofs 
are remarkably strong, since it is ascribed to John by 
Irenaeus and Justin Martyr. Its rejection, for a con- 
siderable period, in the Eastern Church, was owing to 
the great re-action against Chiliasm, which had drawn 
support from it ; although Dionysius of Alexandria, in 
the middle of the third century, who imagined that 
the Presbyter John wrote it, brings critical objections to 
its apostolic origin. The still mooted question of its 
authorship must be determined chiefly by the internal 
evidence. The Second and Third Epistles of John, 
being addressed to individuals, would naturally be slow 
in gaining currency, especially as the name of the 
apostle is not attached to them. Yet, as Bleek well 
remarks, this last circumstance is an argument for their 
genuineness, for which this moderate and candid critic 



442 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

contends. 1 Mangold, the editor of Bleek, attributes 
both writings to the author of the First Epistle bearing 
the name of John. 2 That the apostle wrote this First 
Epistle there is no sufficient reason to question. It 
must be remembered of the catholic or general epistles, 
as a class, that, not being addressed to a particular 
church, they might not circulate so rapidly and readily 
as the other class of epistles. The minor Epistles of 
John were not much contested. Not so, however, with 
Jude and Second Peter. It is obvious that one of the 
authors of these writings made a free use of the work 
of the other. The coincidences of thought, as well 
as of expression, prove this beyond all doubt. Which 
was the prior? The weight of critical authority is, on 
the whole, decidedly in favor of the priority of Jude. 
There is much evidence in favor of its genuineness. 
The circumstance that two apocryphal books are re- 
ferred to — the book of Enoch, and the Anabasis of 
Moses (a work known to Origen) — can be urged 
against its apostolic authorship, only on the ground of 
an a 'priori view of the method of writing which an 
apostle would adopt, or of a theory of inspiration 
which on critical grounds cannot be assumed. More 
doubt has rested upon Second Peter than on any other 
book in the New-Testament canon. The scanty patris- 
tic evidence in favor of it, and the extent to which its 
claim to be a writing of Peter was denied in the early 
centuries, not to speak of more recent ages — to say 
nothing of certain internal peculiarities giving rise to 
suspicion, — incline many at the present day, who are 
not prone to literary or religious scepticism, to disbe- 
lieve in the Petrine authorship. Such a theory, how- 
ever, is always possible, as that which Calvin and 
i Bleek, Einl. in d. N. T., p. 690. « Ibid., p. 694. 



THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 443 

others have suggested, of an indirect and partial con- 
nection of Peter with the composition of it. The decis- 
ion, in the absence of conclusive external data, turns 
upon the impression made by the contents of the Epis- 
tle. On this point the most competent Christian schol- 
ars have thus far failed to agree. 

The foregoing remarks connect themselves with the 
classification of books by Eusebius. The inquiry may 
be started whether this historian was sufficiently well 
informed to make it certain that all the books desig- 
nated " Homologoumena " had really a unanimous ac- 
knowledgment. The possibility, of course, exists, that 
there may have been dissenters, in the case of one or 
more of these books, of whom Eusebius had no knowl- 
edge. Yet his means of information were very un- 
usual. It was a matter in which it is evident that he 
was deeply interested; and there is nothing from any 
other source of evidence tending to correct or disprove 
his statement. 

The question, which is the proper subject of this 
chapter, can be shortly answered. If any of the books 
which are included in the volume called " The New 
Testament " could be proved to be not genuine, they 
would have to be subtracted from that body of docu- 
ments from which we derive authentic knowledge of 
Christ and of the teaching of his chosen apostles. If 
there were any thing in such doubtful or spurious books 
which is peculiar to them, and is not found in the books 
known to be genuine, so much would have to be de- 
ducted from the sum of authoritative doctrine. It is 
obvious at a glance, however, that, even were all of the 
books enumerated under the head of the Antilegomena 
eliminated from the canon, the loss, however consider- 
able, would not obliterate a single essential fact, or a 



444 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

single essential doctrine, of the Christian system. The 
example of such a believer as Martin Luther may re- 
assure timid souls, who conceive that absolute certainty 
respecting the authorship of all the books in the canon 
is an article of a standing or falling church. 

In these observations we have not considered the 
sceptical propositions of a modern date, such as the 
Tubingen school has brought forward with regard to 
New-Testament books not embraced in the list of 
Antilegomena. Later adherents of the Tubingen criti- 
cism have, as concerns several of the apostolic Epistles 
which were rejected by Baur, dissented from him, and 
affirmed their genuineness. As far as the main books, 
from which the historical facts and the substance of 
apostolic teaching are chiefly learned, are concerned, 
the vindication of their genuineness, in case they are 
questioned, is a part of the evidences of Christianity. 
As regards other books not included in this category, 
the preceding remarks respecting the Antilegomena are 
applicable to them. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE CONGRUITY OF THE NATURAL AND PHYSICAL 
SCIENCES WITH THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 

It is not uncommon at present to hear it asserted 
or insinuated that religion, and the Christian religion in 
particular, has been an obstacle in the way of the prog- 
ress of natural science, including, under this designa- 
tion, the various departments of research which concern 
themselves with the material world. Sometimes Chris- 
tianity is spoken of as an enemy still formidable. 
Sometimes the psean of triumph is sounded as over 
a slain foe. There has been, if we are to credit the 
writers referred to, one continuous conflict between the 
religious class on the one hand, and the devotees of 
scientific knowledge on the other. The students of 
nature have had to press their way forward in the face 
of the sword and the fagot. Scientific inquiry has been 
confronted by preconceived opinions concerning its 
subject-matter, having their basis in the theological 
creed. Dogmas of the Church have warned off the stu- 
dent who has been disposed to look upon the heavens 
and the earth with an open, inquisitive eye. He 
has been enjoined to see to it that his investigations 
conduct him to certain fore-ordained conclusions. Inde- 
pendent judgment, founded on an unprejudiced inspec- 
tion of the phenomena, in the light of inductive logic, 
has been branded as profane. The naturalist has had 
to pursue his toilsome search with telescope and micro- 



446 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

scope while the din of ecclesiastical rebuke has tor- 
mented his ears. The questions which he has striven 
to settle by observation and reasoning, he has been told 
are already determined, once for all, by the infallible 
authority of the Bible. What is the flickering torch of 
the feeble intellect of man, ever stumbling on his way, 
by the side of a direct illumination from the Source of 
all light, irradiating the mind of prophet and seer who 
spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost? The 
pulpit, it is said, is always ready to thunder forth anath- 
emas upon the head of the pioneer who opens new 
vistas of truth in the field of scientific exploration. If 
flames and torture are dispensed with, it is very likely 
from lack of power. The spirit of religious intoler- 
ance in relation to the sciences of nature is the same as 
of old. The weapons of warfare are blunted, but the 
nature of the struggle is unaltered. Christianity as- 
sumes to define within a realm which science claims as 
its own. It looks on science as a trespasser breaking 
down sacred landmarks. Science, on the contrary, 
within its province, disowns the usurped authority of 
religion. It holds the definitions of the creed as of no 
account. 

This will be recognized as a not unfair paraphrase of 
what one may frequently meet with in the books and 
periodicals of the day. The errors and distortions min- 
gled in representations of this sort, I shall hope to point 
out. At the beginning, however, it is well to confess 
that the general allegation is not without plausibility. 
It is not a pure fabrication. There are facts on which 
it is founded, whatever mistake and whatever exaggera- 
tion are carried into the interpretation of them. That 
in the name of religion, in past times, nearer and more 
remote, the legitimate pursuits, researches, arguments, 



CONGRUITY OF SCIENCE WITH CHRISTIAN FAITH. 447 

and hypotheses of physical inquirers, have been frowned 
upon, denounced, and proscribed, is undeniable. That 
bodily punishments have been inflicted, and, in other 
cases, the penalty of unpopularity and ostracism, on ac- 
count of opinions, and well warranted opinions, in natu- 
ral science, history is a witness. In antiquity, prior to 
Christ, science was not without its persecuted votaries. 
Socrates, to be sure, was convicted, and put to death, 
not for heresies in physics ; for the study of physical 
phenomena appeared to him to be time wasted, and an 
encroachment on a province that might better be left 
to the regulation of the gods. Aristotle was threatened 
with persecution, like Socrates, for alleged mischievous 
teaching in relation distinctively to theology and ethics. 
But Anaxagoras was arraigned before an Athenian 
court for holding impious physical doctrine, such as 
the opinion that the sun is an incandescent stone, 
larger than the Peloponnesus ; and he owed his deliver- 
ance to the friendship and the eloquence of Pericles. 
Passing down into Christian times, with which we are 
now specially concerned, it is a familiar fact, that, in 
the middle ages, the students who early interested 
themselves in chemical experiments — whether in the 
hope of transmuting the baser metals into gold, or for 
some better reason — were suspected of having entered 
into a league with the devil, and of accomplishing their 
experiments with the aid of this dark confederate. 
Even Albert the Great, the teacher of Aquinas, did not 
wholly escape this dangerous suspicion. At a later 
day Roger Bacon had more to endure on the ground 
of analogous imputations. At a time when the air 
was thought to be thronged with invisible demons, it 
was natural to attribute the strange effects produced 
by chemical manifestation to a preternatural cause. 



448 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

Turning to still later times, we are at once reminded 
of the ecclesiastical antagonism to astronomy, and of 
the memorable case of Galileo. The publication of the 
documents connected with this case has put it into 
the power of every candid person, who will give the 
requisite attention to them, to get at an exact knowl- 
edge of the facts ; and it has put it out of the power of 
theological partisans to conceal or distort the truth. 
It is true that much is still said of the Florentine as- 
tronomer's imprudence in the advocacy of his doctrines, 
and of his temerity in venturing to discuss the biblical 
relations of his discoveries, instead of leaving the inter- 
pretation of texts to the authorized mouthpieces of the 
Church. Even the writer of the article on Galileo, in 
the new edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, lays 
stress on the " sanguine " habit of the philosopher, and 
on the harm which it brought upon him. It is true that 
Galileo's anxiety to spread the knowledge of his won- 
derful discoveries led him into covert means of accom- 
plishing his end. It is true that his ethical feeling, like 
that of too many Italians of that day, made prevarica- 
tion, and, when driven to the wall, direct falsehood, 
facile to him. But nothing that he did affords any 
valid excuse, or hardly even a faint palliation, for the 
enormous wrong of the organized, unrelenting endeav- 
or to suppress the publication of important scientific 
truth, and for the more terrible sin of driving an old 
man to perjure himself by abjuring beliefs which his 
tempters and persecutors well knew that in his heart he 
really held. The lesson which ought to be derived for 
all time from this glaring instance of bigotry and cruel 
intolerance will be lost if the real character of it is 
allowed to be covered up by sophistical apologies. It 
is a fact, that at the command of Pope Paul III. in 



CONGRTJITY OF SCIENCE WITH CHRISTIAN FAITH. 449 

1616, by a decree of the Congregation of the Index, 
the Copernican theory was declared to be false, and 
contrary to Scripture ; that in 1633 Galileo, with the 
approbation, if not at the command, of Urban VIII., 
was condemned to abjure the doctrine as heretical, 
which, seventeen years before, had been pronounced 
false, and contradictory to Scripture. This abjuration, 
together with the judgment of the Inquisition, at the 
command of the Pope were published to the world. 
The prohibition of the books which teach the Coperni- 
can doctrine is in all the issues of the Index that fol- 
lowed: it is in that approved expressly by a bull of 
Alexander VII. in 1664 ; and it remained in the Index 
until its partial removal, by Benedict XIV., in 1757. 
The circulation of books which inculcate the Coperni- 
can theory was not expressly authorized until it was 
done by Pius VII., in 1822. 1 It is beyond all dispute 
that a Congregation, acting under the commission of the 
Pope, condemned as false a truth in science ; that, by 
the express authority of the Pope, the condemnation 
and abjuration of this truth by Galileo were ordered to 
be published abroad to the Church. 2 This comes peril- 
ously near an ex cathedra declaration from the throne 
of St. Peter. What could the faithful infer from such 
proceedings, taken under the express authorization of 
the Pope, but that the Copernican theory is false and 
unscriptural ? This is a point, however, with which we 
arc not at the moment specially concerned. It is easy 
to understand the tremendous shock which the Coper- 
nican theory gave to existing religious views. It was 

1 See, on the whole subject, the proofs given hy Reusch, Der Process 
Galilei's, etc. (Bonn, 1S7U)- Reusch's conclusions are on pp. 450, 451, 
4G2 seq. 

2 See Berti, II Proc. original, di Galileo Galilei, etc. (Roma, 1870) 
Doc. lxiv. p. 121. 



450 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

not merely that particular texts — like the command of 
Joshua to the sun to stand still, and the assertion of the 
Psalmist, that the sun rejoices as a strong man to run a 
race in his daily path across the sky — appeared to be 
contravened : the whole cosmological conception of Gen- 
esis, besides numerous echoes of it in subsequent pages 
of Scripture, seemed to be subverted, at the same time 
that established ideas respecting the future state of ex- 
istence, and the location of the different abodes of the 
good and the evil, — ideas sanctioned by patristic and 
scholastic authority, — were shaken to the foundation. 

Nothing so disgraceful as the condemnation of old 
Galileo, and his abjuration compelled under menace of 
the torture, can be laid to the charge of Protestants, 
as regards the treatment accorded to the devotees of 
natural science. But Protestantism has to acknowl- 
edge that the same sort of mistake has been made, with 
circumstances less tragic and signal, by professed advo- 
cates of a larger liberty of thought. From the first 
rise of geology, down to a recent day, the students 
of this branch of science have had to fight their way 
against an opposition conducted in the name of religion 
and of the Bible. They were charged with a pre- 
sumptuous attempt to contravene the plain teaching of 
revelation. Cowper, in satirizing the dreams and delu- 
sions which get hold of the minds of men, does not 

omit to castigate those who 

" Drill and bore 
The solid earth, and from the strata there 
Extract a register, by which we learn 
That He who made it, and revealed its date 
To Moses, was mistaken in its age." 

There is no doubt that the aimable poet intends to 
pour scorn upon the theory that the globe is more than 



CONGRUITY OF SCIENCE WITH CHRISTIAN FAITH. 451 

about six thousand years old, — a theory then novel, but 
now universally accepted. The geologists were flying 
in the face of Moses : they were audaciously setting up 
their pretended record, dug out of the earth, against 
the Creator's own testimony, given in writing. What 
could indicate more palpably the arrogance of reason ? 
How many pulpits thundered forth their denunciation 
of the impious fiction of the geologists ! The teachers 
of the new geologic cosmogony were pelted with the 
grave rebukes or contemptuous sneers of good men who 
considered themselves called to crush the adversaries of 
a tenet long established, and having its firm warrant in 
Scripture. In this country Professor Moses Stuart, 
who fifty years ago was the leading biblical scholar 
among us, — a man of brilliant talents and of extensive 
if not entirely accurate learning, — took the field against 
the conclusions of geology, which he considered at war 
with any fair interpretation of the opening page of the 
Bible. The late Professor Silliman was obliged to con- 
tend, for many years, with sceptical theologians, on whom 
his arguments made no more impression than hailstones 
upon a rock. Sometimes it was said that the fossils 
which are found embedded in the mountains, or buried 
on the seashore, are the relics of the great and devastat- 
ing Noachian deluge. Not unfrequently it was deemed 
sufficient to declare that God may have created them 
just as they are, and where they lie. Hugh Miller, even 
at the late day when he wrote, found it requisite to 
argue from analogy, — from the inference justified in 
the case of cemeteries which contain human bones, — 
that the hypothesis of the immediate creation of fossils 
in the fossil form is inconsistent with sound logic, and 
involves a disparagement of the Creator's veracity. 
The most recent instance of mistaken religious zeal in 



452 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

a blaze against the naturalists is furnished by the 
advent of Darwinism. The recollection is still fresh 
of the anathemas which the appearance of Darwin's 
Origin of Species and Descent of Man provoked. How 
far the different sorts of animals and other" organized 
beings are bound together by a genetic connection is 
still an open question ; although the traditional beliefs 
as to the origin of these various divisions may be said 
to have dropped, for the most part, from the scientific 
creed. Even if species come into being by descent, it 
is problematical whether the doctrine of natural selec- 
tion is a solvent of so great power as the Darwinian 
form of the evolution-hypothesis has maintained. But 
the bearings of Darwinism, in the shape in which its 
author propounded it, upon theism and Christian be- 
lief, are now well understood. It has been abundantly 
shown that it leaves the being and attributes of God, as 
Christians conceive of them, untouched. . Speculations 
of Darwin pertaining to the origin of the mind and of 
the moral faculty may wear a threatening look. But 
these are a subordinate part of the Darwinian discus- 
sion ; and it should not be lightly assumed that even 
these, of necessity, clash with the Christian idea of man 
as a spiritual and responsible creature. A preacher of 
so high a type of ecclesiasticism, and of an orthodoxy so 
stainless, as Dean Liddell, tells us, in a sermon preached 
since Darwin was entombed, that the theory which has 
made his name famous carries in it no antagonism to 
the creed of a Christian. The conflict about which 
there has been so great a noise is pronounced to be 
unreal. If this be so, then the guns of a myriad pulpits 
have been turned upon a man of straw. 

The causes of the attitude of intolerance which has 
frequently been taken by religious men towards new 



CONGRUITY OF SCIENCE WITH CHRISTIAN FAITH. 453 

opinions in natural science are multiple. There is, 
first, the customary impatience of new truth, or of new 
doctrine which stands in opposition to cherished ideas, 
— ideas that have long had a quiet lodgement in the 
mind. This species of conservatism is far from being 
peculiar to theologians or to the religious class : it be- 
longs to other classes of human beings as well, and is 
manifested equally in connection with other beliefs. 
Innovators in politics, or in these very sciences which 
have to do with the material world, are very apt to be 
confronted with resistance — often with stubborn and 
angry resistance — from people engaged in the same 
pursuits. Few ministers expressed a more unsparing 
antipathy to Darwinism than Agassiz, the apostle of a 
different zoological system. The path which scientific 
discoverers have to tread, apart from the religious and 
ecclesiastical jealousies which they are liable to awaken, 
is not apt to be a smooth one. The odium theologieum 
is only one specific form of a more generic odium which 
vents itself in learned scientific bodies and in the con- 
troversial papers of rival schools of savans. It would 
seem as if men come at length to look on their estab- 
lished opinions as a piece of property, and upon all 
who seem disposed to deprive them of this agreeable 
possession as thieves and robbers. Fanaticism may be 
kindled in behalf of any cause or creed with which 
personal feeling has become associated, or with which 
intellectual pride has irrevocably become involved. 
Hence every important revolution in scientific opinion 
has succeeded, not without a conflict with the adherents 
of the traditional view, — an internecine war among 
the cultivators of science themselves. 

Then, secondly, religious faith, as it exists in almost 
every mind, is habitually associated with beliefs errone- 



454 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

ously supposed to be implicated in it. Beyond the 
truth itself on which a man really lives, there is a mass 
of connected belief, which not one out of a hundred, 
to speak moderately, either attempts to dissever from it, 
or imagines it possible to dissever. To disconnect this 
accretion of secondary beliefs, be they well founded or 
ill founded, from that which Is vital, it is tacitly taken 
for granted, is out of the question. That which would 
remain after the amputation it is silently assumed 
would bleed to death. It is only the few disciplined 
and rigorously logical minds who approximate closely 
to a perception of what is and what is not vital to a 
doctrine or a system. Such a discrimination is seldom 
made with any high degree of accuracy. Hence one 
may think that his life is threatened when the surgeon's 
knife is lopping off an excrescence, or is removing a 
member the loss of which leaves the body with undi- 
minished or increased vigor. Religious beliefs, in the 
average mind, are so interwoven with one another, as 
the mere effect of association, where there may be no 
necessary bond of union, that, where one of them is 
assailed, the whole are thought to be in danger. Time 
was, when a belief in witchcraft was held by many to 
be an articulus stantis et cadentis eeelesice. Even John 
Wesley expresses this opinion, or something equivalent. 
It was a belief that had existed so long, it had been 
adopted and practised on by so many of the bad and 
good, it was judged to be so recognized in the Scrip- 
tures, it entered so intimately into the accepted mode 
of conceiving of supernatural agents, that the loss of 
it out of the faith of a Christian was felt to be like a 
displacement of a stone from the arch : it would lead to 
the downfall of the whole structure. The old Greeks 
held that the stars were severally the abode of deific 



CONGRTJITY OF SCIENCE WITH CHRISTIAN FAITH. 455 

beings: they were animated and moved by intelligences. 
Plato and Aristotle were not delivered from this way of 
thinking. When a man like Anaxagoras said that the 
sun was a stone, the entire theological edifice was felt 
to be menaced with overthrow. Men did not at once 
discern that atheism did not follow. They did not see 
that a belief either in one God, or in gods many or 
lords many, might still subsist, and subsist just as well, 
when the traditional tenet which personified the stars 
had been relinquished. It is a matter of daily expe- 
rience to witness a vociferous opposition to the intro- 
duction of some new mode of conceiving of a religious 
truth, or of defending it, where the motive of the im- 
bittered outcry is a misconception of the effect of the 
opinion in question upon the subsistence of religious 
belief. The disposition " to multiply essentials " good 
Richard Baxter considered the bane of the Church, 
the prolific source of intolerance and division. The 
tendency to identify accident with substance, the fail- 
ure to discern the core of a truth from its integuments, 
is at the root of much of the rash and unreasoning and 
vehement resistance that has been offered in past times 
to the advances of natural science. 

In adverting to the occasions of conflict between per- 
sons specially interested in religious truth, and students 
of natural science, there is one other observation to be 
made, to which it is well for theologians to give heed. 
The ground is often practically taken, and sometimes 
avowedly, taht the views relative to the teaching of 
Scripture respecting the material world, both as to its 
meaning and authority, which have come down to us, 
we ought to cling to until we are forced to abandon 
them. The maxim is to part with the traditional opin- 
ions on this topic only when the concession is extorted 



456 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

by evidence no longer to be withstood. Never yield an 
inch of ground until it is found impossible to hold it. 
This way of viewing the subject is wholly unscientific, 
and unworthy of theology, if theology would keep its 
place as a science. It rests on a false assumption re- 
specting the rightful relation of religion to the studies 
of nature. It is mischievous, it is hurtful to the cause 
of religion. It is in fact, in its proper tendency, suici- 
dal. It is unscientific, in the first place. If the prog- 
ress of natural science has taught in repeated instances, 
and taught impressively, that the traditional views 
taken of the Scriptures contain error, the aim should 
be to eliminate that error, and to do it, if possible, forth- 
with, and not wait to receive blow after blow. Some 
new canon of interpretation should be found which 
places the reader of the Bible above the reach of these 
rude disturbances of his belief. If this is found im- 
practicable, if it is found that fair interpretation, with- 
out any such strain as offends the critical sense and the 
ethical sense as well, fails to set the scriptural ex- 
pressions in harmony with the ascertained results of 
inductive science, then let the inspiration-dogma be 
revised. Let the theory relative to the authority of 
Scripture be formulated in accordance with the facts. 
Our position is, that it is unworthy of the Church to 
stand idle and passive, but prepared to give up one 
point after another as it may find itself obliged to do 
so. This is virtually the position which many would 
assume. They stand waiting for some new demand 
from natural science, — stand shivering, perhaps, lest 
they should be stripped of another inherited view re- 
specting the world and the way in which it was made. 
The proper course for the thinkers of the Church to 
take is to anticipate the demands of natural science, 



CONGRUITY OF SCIENCE WITH CHRISTIAN FAITH. 457 

and, as far as the light they possess will enable them, 
take up a position as to the teaching of Scripture and 
the substance of the faith from which they cannot be 
dislodged. No course could be better adapted to excite 
a general distrust of Scripture than that of making a 
stand at one point after another, only to beat a retreat 
at the first regular onset of the assailant. The policy 
which we here condemn rests upon the assumption that 
natural science is to be looked upon as an adversary 
bent upon conquest, instead of a branch of human 
knowledge to be hailed as an ally and a friend. The 
progress of physical discovery has gone far enough to 
render it practicable for Christian theologians, if they 
will clear their minds of bias, either on the side of 
tradition or of innovation, to compare the utterances 
of the Bible with the settled doctrines of science, and 
then determine what modification of formulas and in- 
terpretations is required. The seventeenth century 
was far less favorably situated than the nineteenth as 
regards the discrimination between the human and the 
divine factors which conspire in the production of the 
Scriptures. The proper authority of the Bible, and 
the bounds of that authority, it is now more practicable 
to define, since the phenomena of Scripture are more 
thoroughly understood, and other branches of knowl- 
edge which require to be consulted as aids in the 
investigation have made an immense advance. 

Having made these preliminary remarks on the 
causes of complaint which students of nature have had 
in times distant and recent, we proceed to affirm, that 
the general allegation against religion and Christianity, 
of having proved a hinderance to the advancement of 
scientific knowledge, is without any just foundation. 
The school of Buckle, whose superficial and pretentious 



458 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

History of Civilization abounds in manifestations of 
anti-Christian prejudice, is fond of representing religion 
as in perpetual " conflict " with science. In the patris- 
tic age, in the history of ancient Christianity, these 
writers can find little that can help them to bolster up 
their fictitious charge. To understand the middle ages, 
one must take into view the domination of Aristotle, 
which, partly for good and partly for evil, established 
itself in the thirteenth century in the educated class. 
At first Aristotle was resisted, especially when the 
Arabic Pantheism linked itself to his teaching; but 
finally he came to be considered as a chosen man who 
had exhausted the possibilities of natural reason. Con- 
sidering what the character of civilization was in that 
era, the influence of the Stagirite was natural, and not 
without a great intellectual benefit. With the Refor- 
mation, his sceptre was broken. The way was opened 
by this emancipation for the progress of physical and 
natural science. The epochs in this great emancipation 
are marked by the advent of the voyagers Columbus 
and Da Garaa, by the discoveries of Copernicus and 
Vesalius, by the revolution effected by Newton, by the 
extension of astronomical science through the elder 
Herschel, and by the final triumph of the method of 
experimental and inductive research which owed much 
to the influence of Bacon, but the glory of which must 
be shared by a multitude of explorers. To figure this 
progress of culture, through Aristotle's reign and since 
his downfall, as a " conflict with religion," is a proceed- 
ing as shallow as it is calumnious. 1 

The late Dr. John W. Draper may be taken as an 

1 Zockler's work, which I had not examined until this chapter was 
mostly written, Gesch. d. Beziehungen d. Theol. u. Naturwissensohaft 
(1877), contains interesting matter on the points here considered. 



C0NGRU1TY OF SCIENCE WITH CHRISTIAN FAITH. 459 

example of a class of authors who have labored to dis- 
seminate the impression which is here contradicted. A 
man of marked ability, and justly eminent in certain 
provinces of scientific knowledge, he has, nevertheless, 
in his work on The Intellectual Development of Europe, 
and in a smaller work on The Conflict of Religion and 
Science, given currency to what we consider a false 
and injurious view of the proper tendency and actual 
influence of Christianity. It is true that Dr. Draper 
is much more lenient in his judgment of Protestantism 
than of Roman Catholicism. But his thesis is, that "a 
divine revelation must necessarily be intolerant of con- 
tradiction ; it must repudiate all improvement on itself, 
and view with disdain that arising from the progressive 
intellectual development of man." 1 His representation 
is, that there are always two parties, — science on the 
one side, and religious faith on the other. The drift 
of his teaching is to the effect that the great mistake, 
— the " great neglect of duty," — on the part of the 
heathen sages of antiquity, was in failing to make pro- 
vision for the propagation of their saving doctrines ; 
the design being, apparently, to suggest that the world 
would have been delivered from the blinding and nar- 
rowing influence of that system of religious belief which 
actually obtained sway in Europe. 2 There is a certain 
naivete in this lament ; as if the failure to engage in 
active propagandism did not grow out of the essential 
character of the systems which the much lauded sages 
and philosophers cherished. This is one point in Dr. 
Draper's view of history. Another ground of lamen- 
tation is found in the failure of Arabic culture and 
philosophy to become dominant. Coupled with this 
sentiment is an exalted view of the scientific merit 

1 Hist, of the Conflict of Religion and Science, p. vi. 2 Ibid., p. vii. 



460 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

of the Saracenic philosophers in comparison with the 
Christian culture and philosophy which displaced them. 
The ideal system appears to be found in the pantheistic 
speculations of Averroes. The indebtedness of Europe 
to Arabic science is depicted in warm colors. 

All this involves a considerable amount of error and 
exaggeration. It is conceded that Christian writers 
have been sometimes niggardly in awarding credit to 
the work done by Mohammedan scholars in the earlier 
portion of the middle ages. Religious prejudice has 
had its effect in lowering unduly the estimate which 
should be put upon Arabic learning, and the services 
rendered by it in the education of Europe. The univer- 
sities of Bagdad and Damascus, of Cordova and Seville, 
were lights in a dark age. The knowledge gained by 
inquisitive ecclesiastics from the North in the Moorish 
schools of Spain communicated the impulse out of 
which scholasticism sprang into being. The school- 
men owed their first knowledge of Aristotle to Latin 
translations from Arabic versions of his writings. In 
several of the sciences, as medicine and astronomy, the 
Arabs gained a knowledge above that of their contem- 
poraries, and even contributed, in no inconsiderable 
measure, to the advancement of these branches. Lau- 
dation of the Arabs cannot justly go much beyond this 
point. In the first place, it is to be remembered that 
the Arabians derived their science from the Greeks. 
Not only their methods, but the greater portion of their 
stock of knowledge, were acquired from the ancient 
writers, whom they studied through the medium of 
translations. In the second place, it is not to be for- 
gotten that the Arabs were indebted to Christians for 
their introduction to, and knowledge of, Greek authors. 
Versions of Aristotle and of other authors were made 



CONGRUITY OF SCIENCE WITH CHRISTIAN FAITH. 461 

into Arabic by Syrian Christians. Nestorians were the 
tutors and guides of the Arabs. Alfarabi and Avicenna 
were pupils of Syrian and Christian physicians. In 
the ninth century, Hassein Ibn Ishak was at the head of 
a school of interpreters at Bagdad, by whom the Arabs 
were furnished with the treatises of the Stagirite and 
of his ancient commentators. 1 Thirdly, the additions 
which the Arabs made to the stock of learning were 
comparatively small. We say " comparatively." In 
comparison with what they learned from the Greeks, 
their contributions were small ; but, especially in com- 
parison with the scientific achievements of Christian 
students of later days, the v discoveries of the Mohamme- 
dans were insignificant. Whewell, in his History of the 
Inductive Sciences, has brought out very distinctly the 
fact, that it was not until scientific discovery and ex- 
periment were taken up under Christian auspices and 
by Christian explorers, that the astonishing advances 
were made which give character to modern science. In 
astronomy, the favorite study of the Arabs, and one in 
which they really did much, what is all their original 
teaching when set by the side of the work done by 
Copernicus, Galileo, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, and New- 
ton? The methods, the instruments, the observations, 
the brilliant inductions, which have revolutionized our 
conceptions of the sidereal universe, are not due to 
the Arabs. They are owing to the genius of the Chris- 
tian masters whose names have just been given, and 
to others who, have trod in their path. It is in the 
atmosphere of Christianity, amid the influences which 
Christian civilization has originated, in the bosom of 
Christian society, that the amazing progress of natural 
and physical science in all of its departments has taken 
1 See Ueberweg's Hist, of Philosophy, i. p. 410 seq. 



462 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

place. It is not that praise of the Arabs for what they 
learned and taught is begrudged r it is only that the 
praise bestowed on them is exaggerated, and that the 
idea of some stupendous work which they would have 
done if they had been let alone, is illusive and vis- 
ionary. 

The foregoing remarks are to show that the accusa- 
tion of having been, on the whole, a barrier in the way 
of science, which is brought against Christian society 
at large, is founded on a misjudgment respecting the 
factors concerned in the development of modern civili- 
zation and culture. A kindred fallacy inhering in this 
allegation is in the identifying of the acts of ecclesiastical 
rulers with the sentiments and inclinations of the body 
of Christian people. The proceedings of the hierarchy 
of the Latin Church in particular cases are not to be 
confounded with the spontaneous voice of Christian 
society as a whole. The multitude of communicants, 
even in that body, might not concern themselves in 
these measures of persecution. We may take as an 
illustration the case of Galileo. How much did even 
Catholics generally know of what the Inquisition was 
doing in this affair? The body of the laity were not 
consulted. There was no room for a free expression of 
their sympathy in one direction or the other. For ages 
the Christian Church was dominated in the West by 
the Latin hierarchy. To hold the Church at all times, 
much more Christianity itself, responsible for every 
deed of cruelty and fanaticism which the rulers of the 
Church committed, is a manifest injustice. Yet it is the 
fashion of censorious writers who would fain exhibit 
religion as hostile to science, to rake together from the 
annals of the past all the instances of priestly intoler- 
ance of this nature, and to lay them in a lump at the 
door of the Christian Church. 



CONGRUITY OF SCIENCE WITH CHRISTIAN FAITH. 463 

A fallacy still more flagrant, of which the class of 
writers to whom we are referring are guilty, is deserv- 
ing of special attention. The exposure of it goes far 
to nullify the popular assertions with regard to the 
opposition, in past days, of religion to natural science. 
These writers unconsciously overlook the fact, that, for 
the most part, the pioneers of scientific discovery who 
have had to endure persecution for broaching novel 
views upon the constitution and origin of nature have 
been themselves Christians. It has not been a war 
of disbelievers and sceptics, on the one side, who have 
been obliged to suffer at the hands of believers in 
Christianity for teaching scientific truth. It has com- 
monly been a contest of Christian against Christian. 
Where there has been a combat of this sort, it has been 
an intestine struggle. To represent by implication that 
in one camp have been found atheists and infidels, eager 
and successful in exploring the secrets of nature, while 
in the other have been collected the host of Christian 
disciples, their persecutors, is utterly false and mislead- 
ing. Where the war has existed, it has been a war of 
Greek against Greek. Christian men, taught in Chris- 
tian schools, or stimulated intellectually by the aggre- 
gate of influences which Christianity has in the process 
of time, to a great degree, called into being, make some 
new discovery in science, which clashes with previous 
opinions, and strikes many as involving the rejection 
of some article of Christian belief. Debate ensues. 
Intemperate defenders of the received opinion denounce 
those who would overthrow it. Intolerant men, if they 
have the power, instigated by passion, and probably 
thinking that they are doing God service, resort to 
force for the purpose of suppressing the obnoxious 
doctrine, and crushing its advocates. These advocates, 



464 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTTC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

denying that Christianity is impugned by their new 
scientific creed, stand, with more or less constancy, for 
the defence of it. In some cases they are imprisoned : 
in other cases they are driven into exile,, or put to 
death. Some become martyrs to science : some weakly 
renounce their convictions. This, in the main, is the 
story of persecution as directed against promoters of 
natural and physical science. It has been, with some 
exceptions, the melancholy tale of Christians so far 
misled by passion, or by bad logic, or by false notions 
of duty, as to interfere with the proper liberty of 
fellow-Christians who are blessed with more light. 

Let us glance at some of the individuals who have 
been named among the votaries of science that have 
earned reproach for supposed religious aberrations. 
Albertus Magnus should hardly have a place among 
them ; yet his name figures often among those who are 
said to have suffered, on account of his interest in 
alchemy. Some of his ignorant contemporaries, it is 
true, thought him a magician. But this great light of 
the Dominican order, and teacher of Thomas Aquinas, 
was as far as possible from free-thinking in religion. 
It was his fame in the Church that gave him the title 
of "the Great." He was a Christian thinker, justly 
held in honor in his own generation, and somewhat 
in advance of his times in the interest which he took in 
natural science. Who was Roger Bacon, who is so 
often pointed out as one of the victims of religious 
bigotry? His eminence, when compared with the men 
of his time, there may be a tendency at present to exag- 
gerate ; but he was unquestionably on a level with the 
greatest minds of the thirteenth century, so prolific in 
examples of intellectual power. He was persecuted by 
reason of the scientific spirit which he manifested and 



CONGRUITY OF SCIENCE WITH CHRISTIAN FAITH. 465 

exemplified in his researches. His lectures at Oxford 
were interdicted by Bonaventura, the general of the 
Franciscan order of which he was a member. He lived 
at Paris, under a sort of ecclesiastical surveillance, for 
ten years. Later his books were condemned, and he 
was in prison for fourteen years. This is one chapter 
of the story. On the other hand, he was himself a 
sincere Christian believer, — as firm a believer as. were 
the ecclesiastics who imposed penalties on him for his 
teaching. This is not all. Among his numerous sup- 
porters was that liberal-minded man, Robert Grosse- 
teste, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln. Moreover, it was 
Guy de Foulques, after his election to the Papacy under 
the name of Clement IV., who called upon him to 
write out a treatise on the sciences, which, when a papal 
legate, he had requested of him. This Pope, it would 
appear, interested himself in his favor ; and it was not 
until the accession of Nicholas IV. to the papal chair, 
a man of a very different temper, that the persecution 
of Bacon was begun with renewed severity. It must 
be remembered, that the philosopher had inveighed with 
vehemence against the vices of the monks and of the 
clergy, and against their ignorance, and had gathered 
against him, on this account, an array of personal ene- 
mies. The story of Roger Bacon is the story of a 
contest within the Church in a half-enlightened age, — 
an age when European life was emerging out of the 
barbarism that followed upon the fall of the Western 
Empire, and that was only briefly and partially inter- 
rupted in the era of Charlemagne, to return again in 
the tenth century with increased darkness and confu- 
sion. The story of Bacon is the story of a conflict 
between an able Christian teacher, who was decorated 
with the honorary appellation of "Doctor Mirabilis," 



46G THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

who counted prelates and a pope among his friends, 
and a much more numerous set of adversaries, partly 
frightened by the new ideas that he broached, and 
partly exasperated by the stinging rebukes, however 
deserved, which had flowed from his sharp pen. To 
represent this as a contest between "religion and 
science," under the implication that anti-Christian stu- 
dents of science were on one side, and the collective 
body of Christians on the other, is to misrepresent his- 
tory, with the result, if not for the purpose, of feeding 
on infidel prejudice. As for Galileo, there is no reason 
to question that he was a Christian believer and a 
Catholic, with a low ethical standard as regards the obli- 
gation of veracity, which was only too common among 
the countrymen of Machiavelli. There is no proof that 
he doubted the divine authority of the Bible more 
than did Cardinal Baronius, to whom Galileo refers, 
not by name, as the author of the remark, that the 
Scriptures were given to tell us how to go to heaven, 
and not how heaven goes. Nor was Galileo without 
warm sympathy from ecclesiastics, some of them high 
in station, who went as far as they dared in the attempt 
to shield him against the implacable bigotry by which 
he was pursued. Among his opponents were not a few 
men of science, ardent Aristotelians, who combined 
with ill-informed and narrow churchmen to bring down 
upon the head of their illustrious rival the wrath of the 
Inquisition. The history of Galileo is the history of a 
Christian man of science having among his friends and 
supporters no inconsiderable number of Christian peo- 
ple, who constituted, however, in Italy, at that time, a 
powerless minority in the face of the organized and 
relentless vigilance and force of the party of bigotry 
and intolerance. Coming down to recent days, we find 



CONGHUITY OF SCIENCE WITH CHRISTIAN FAITH. 467 

that the earliest and most efficient promoters of geolo- 
gical science were not unfriendly to the doctrine of 
theism or of revelation. In this country they were 
Christian believers, like the late Professor Silliman and 
President Hitchcock. Such men as these, with candid 
Christian, scholars and ministers among their auxiliaries, 
fought the battle between the cause of science and its 
well-meaning but mistaken and often intolerant oppo- 
sers. 

The aspersions cast upon Christianity and the Chris- 
tian Church for an alleged interference with the prog- 
ress of science would be very much diminished if the 
authors of them would learn to discriminate between 
science and philosophy. Under the segis of what is 
called " science," assent is claimed for guesses and 
theories which belong, if they belong anywhere, in the 
domain of metaphysical speculation. They seek to 
pass unquestioned in the livery of " science." In them- 
selves they may deserve respect or disrespect ; but it 
is a mere blunder, or a trick, to proclaim them as the 
legitimate products of inductive investigation. When a 
bright-minded physicist proclaims that Plato and Shak- 
speare are potentially present in the sun's rays, he is 
not speaking in the character of a sober student of 
nature, but of a metaphysical dreamer. His propo- 
sition is without proof, and is absolutely incapable of 
proof by any process known to physical science. The 
authority that may justly pertain to him when he 
stands on his own ground, he loses utterly when lie 
leaps the fence into a field not his own. When a biolo- 
gist assumes to be an oracle respecting the origin and 
end of the universe, the freedom of the will, and the 
nature of consciousness, his utterances may be wise or 
foolish; but they are, at least, not at all authoritative. 



468 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

If the prominent naturalists, or several of them, would 
stick to their province, they would be more instructive, 
even if less notorious. The agnosticism of Herbert 
Spencer is an idea of Hamilton and Mansel as to the 
relativity of knowledge, caught up, and dissevered from 
its adjuncts, — an idea derived first from Kant. So far 
from having any verification in natural and physical 
science, it lies quite outside of their realm. Yet this 
underpinning of Spencer's system is gravely mistaken 
by some for a " scientific " truth, instead of a philosoph- 
ical assumption of such a character that the structure 
reared on it is a house built on the sand. 

If all that has been said of the opposition offered in 
past times to scientific progress by Christian people 
were true, — and we have tried to state how much of 
truth there is in the imputation, and how much of 
error, — no conclusion adverse to the truth of Christi- 
anity could be inferred. To justify such a conclusion, 
it would be necessary to prove that the Christian faith, 
the doctrine of Christ and of his redemption, carries in 
it by natural or necessary consequence this antipatlry. 
It might be that the professed adherents of a religious 
system fail, in numerous instances, to apprehend in 
certain particulars its true genius. They may identify 
their own preconpeptions with its actual teaching. 
They may misinterpret that teaching in some important 
aspects of it. They may carry their own ideas into the 
sacred books, instead of receiving their ideas from them. 
They may fail to apprehend clearly the design and 
scope of their sacred writings, the character and limits 
of their authority. They may cling to the letter, and 
let the spirit, in a measure, escape them. They may 
fail to separate between the essential and the accidental 
in their contents, the truth and the vehicle which em- 



CONGRUITY OF SCIENCE WITH CHRISTIAN FAITH. 469 

bodies it. Unless it can be shown, then, that Chris- 
tianity involves a view of the material world and of its 
origin, of the laws of nature and its final cause, and of 
man, which is at variance with the results of natural 
investigation, nothing which the adherents of Christi- 
anity have said or done in this matter is of vital mo- 
ment. That Christianity, fairly understood and defined, 
involves no such contradiction to scientific belief, is 
capable of being proved. 

This division of the subject we have now to consider. 
A sense of the beauty and sublimity of nature pervades 
the Bible. The keen relish of the Hebrew writers for 
the grand and the lovely aspects of nature is specially 
manifest in the Psalms and prophets. The starry sky, 
forest, and mountain and sea, filled the Israelite's heart 
with mingled awe and rejoicing. Nor was he insensible 
to the influence of gentler sights and sounds, — to the 
bleating of the flocks on the hillside, the songs of birds, 
the flowers and fruits with their varied colors. That 
sort of asceticism which turns away from nature as 
something, if not hostile to the spirit, yet beneath man's 
notice, is in absolute contrast with the tone of the 
►Scriptures. The religion of the Hebrews, not less than 
the religion of the New Testament, looking on the 
visible world as the work of God and a theatre of his 
incessant activity, allowed no such antipathy. It left 
no room for a cynical contempt or disregard of external 
beauty. The glowing descriptions of poets and seers, 
reflecting the spontaneous impressions made by nature 
on souls alive to its grandeur and its charm, naturally 
inspired an appreciation of that kind of knowledge 
which was ascribed to the king who "spake of trees, 
from the cedar-tree that is in Lebanon even unto the 



470 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

hyssop that springeth out of the wall : he spake also 
of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of 
fishes " (1 Kings iv. 33). 

The unity of nature is presupposed in the Scrip- 
tures. It is the correlate of the strict monotheism of 
the Bible. There is no divided realm, as there is no 
dual or plural sovereignty. Humboldt refers to the 
hundred-and-fourth Psalm as presenting the image 
of the whole cosmos : " Who coverest thyself with 
light as with a garment : who stretchest out the heavens 
like a curtain : who layeth the beams of his chambers 
in the waters : who maketh the clouds his chariot," 
etc. "We are astonished," writes Humboldt, "to find 
in a lyrical poem of such a limited compass the whole 
universe — the heavens and the earth — sketched with 
a few bold touches. The calm and toilsome labor of 
man, from the rising of the sun to the setting of the 
same, when his daily work is done, is here contrasted 
with the moving life of the elements of nature. This 
contrast and generalization in the conception of the 
mutual action of natural phenomena, and this retro- 
spection of an omnipresent, invisible power, which can 
renew the earth, or crumble it to dust, constitute a 
solemn and exalted, rather than a glowing and gentle, 
form of poetic creation." It " is a rich and animated 
conception of the life of nature." 1 This one thought 
of the unity of nature is not an induction, but an intu- 
itive perception involved in the revealed idea of God, 
and gives to science by anticipation one of its impera- 
tive demands. 

Not only does the Bible proclaim the unity of nature ; 
it views nature as a system. 

In the first place, the operation of natural causes is 

1 Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 412 (Bohn's ed.). 



CONGRTJITY OF SCIENCE WITH CHRISTIAN FAITH. 471 

recognized. In the story of the creation, every sort of 
plant and tree was made to yield "fruit after its kind, 
whose seed is in itself ; "and every class of animals, to 
produce offspring " after its kind." One has only to look 
at Job and the Psalms to convince himself that the 
reality of nature and of natural agents is a familiar 
thought to the sacred writers. It is true that these 
writers are religious : they do not limit their attention 
to the proximate antecedent : they go back habitually 
to the First Cause. They may often leap over interme- 
diate subordinate forces, and attribute phenomena 
directly to the personal source of all energy. This 
involves no denial of secondary, instrumental causes, 
but only of an atheistic or pantheistic mode of regard- 
ing them. If we say that Erwin von Steinbach built 
the spire of the Strasburg Cathedral, we do not mean 
that stones and derricks were not employed in the con- 
struction of it. We simply trace it immediately to 
him whose plan and directive energy originated the 
structure. When the Bible says that "by the word of 
the Lord were the heavens made," there is involved no 
denial of the nebular theory. Hardly any assertion rela- 
tive to the subject is more frequent than that the Scrip- 
tures recognize no natural agencies. It is unfounded. 
It springs from a dull method of interpreting religious 
phraseology, and from a neglect of multiplied passages 
which teach the contrary. ' 

Not only are natural causes recognized : nature is 
governed by law. Its powers are under systematic 
regulation. To the Hebrew poet, says Humboldt, 
nature "is a work of creation and order, the living 
expression of the omnipresence of the Divinity in the 
visible world." 1 There are no dark realms given up 
1 Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 412. 



472 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

to unreason and disorder. Everywhere the power and 
wisdom of the Most High have stamped themselves on 
the creation. The same writer from whom we have 
just quoted, remarks of the closing chapters of the Book 
of Job : " The meteorological processes which take 
place in the atmosphere, the formation and solution 
of vapor, according to the changing direction of the 
wind, the play of its colors, the generation of hail and of 
the rolling thunder, are described with individualizing 
accuracy ; and many questions are propounded which 
we, in the present state of our physical knowledge, may 
indeed be able to express under more scientific defini- 
tions, but scarcely to answer satisfactorily." 1 In these 
chapters of Job the mysteries of nature are set forth in 
connection with the reign of law and the impressive 
demonstration afforded by it of the inexhaustible wis- 
dom and might of the Creator and Sustainer of all 
things. The waters in their ebb and flow, the clouds 
in their gathering and their journeys, the stars and con- 
stellations in their regular motion, the course of the 
seasons, the races of animals, with the means given 
them for safety and subsistence, in a word, every de- 
partment of the physical universe, is brought into this 
picture of the ordered empire of Jehovah. Looking at 
the Scriptures as a whole, we may say, that, so far from 
contradicting science in their views of nature, they an- 
ticipate the fundamental assumptions of science which 
induction helps to verify, and that nothing in the litera- 
ture of the remote past is so accordant with that sense 
of the unity, order, not to speak of the glory, of nature, 
which science fosters, as are the Sacred Writings. 

It was to be expected that a revelation having for its 
end the moral deliverance of mankind would abstain 

1 Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 414. 



CONGRUITY OF SCIENCE WITH CHRISTIAN FAITH. 473 

from authoritative teaching on matters relating to nat- 
ural science, except so far as they are inseparable from 
moral and religious truth. Theism, as contrasted with 
atheism, dualism, pantheism, and polytheism, is a funda- 
mental postulate of revelation and redemption. That 
the only living God has created, upholds, and dwells in 
the world of nature, that the world in its order and 
design testifies to him, that his providence rules all, 
are truths which enter into the warp and woof of 
the revealed system. So man's place in creation, his 
nature, sin as related to his physical and moral consti- 
tution, the effect of death, are themes falling within the 
scope of revealed religion. In general, we find that the 
Bible confines itself to this circle of truths. The ideas 
of nature, apart from its direct religious bearings, are 
such as contemporary knowledge had attained. The 
geography, the astronomy, the meteorology, the geology, 
of the scriptural authors, are on the plane of their times. 
Copernicus and Columbus, Aristotle and Newton, are 
not anticipated. The Bible renders unto science the 
things of science. The principal apparent exception to 
this procedure is in the somewhat detailed narrative of 
creation in the first chapter of Genesis. It is obvious 
that details, if such there be, which go beyond the limit 
defined above, are of the nature of obiter dicta, — infor- 
mation vouchsafed beyond that which might reasonably 
be expected. 

Respecting this passage, it deserves to be remarked, 
that elsewhere in the Old Testament no stress is laid 
upon the details as there found. The allusions to the 
origin of things in Job, the Psalms, and Proverbs, do 
not exhibit the succession of organic beings in just the 
same, order. Even in the hundred-and-fourth Psalm, 
where the same order in the works of creation appears, 



474 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

— the writer having in mind the Genesis narrative, — 
no weight is attached to the number of days. 1 

If we glance at the history of the interpretation of 
this passage, we shall find that the meaning given to it 
in different periods is generally matched to the science 
of the day. From Philo and Origen the allegorical 
treatment spread in the ancient Church, and prevailed 
in the middle ages. Augustine considered that the 
works of creation were in reality simultaneous, or that 
creation is timeless. His view was, that time begins 
with creation. In truth, one principal difficulty with in- 
terpreters down to recent days was that creation, which 
is by an instantaneous fiat, should extend over days. 
The time was thought to be, not too short, but too long. 
That God created the universe ; that things came into 
being in orderly succession ; that the crown of the crea- 
tion is man ; that man, though material on one side of 
his nature, was made for a higher end than the animals 
were ; that he was to use them in his service ; that his 
sin was not an infirmity of constitution, but a wilful 
disobedience to God; that conscious guilt and shame 
followed sin, — these great truths, to say the least, are 
embodied in the Genesis narrative, in the estimation of 
all who receive the religion of Christ. 

But since the rise of modern astronomy and geology, 
new difficulties have arisen. The physical system, as 
conceived by the Genesis writer, is said to be geocen- 
tric. The origination of the luminaries above, of the 
earth and of the organized beings upon it, seems to be 
placed at an epoch only a few thousand years distant, 
and to be represented as taking place in a few days. 
On the contrary, geology, to say nothing here of ethno- 

i See Dillmann, Die Genesis, p. 12; cf. Isa. xxvi.7-10, xxxviii. 4 seq.; 
Prov. viii. 24 seq. ; Ps. xxiv. 2. 



CONGRUITY OF SCIENCE WITH CHRISTIAN FAITH. 475 

logical and archaeological science, shows that the system 
of things has come into being gradually, that creation 
stretches over vast periods in the past. Enough has 
been said already to indicate how groundless are the 
objections which spring merely from inattention to the 
religious point of view of the biblical writers. The 
First Cause is brought into the foreground : proximate 
antecedents are passed over. The features of the Gen- 
esis narrative which seem to clash with science are 
chiefly the order of succession in creation, and the 
chronological statements. 

Various hypotheses for the reconcilement of Genesis 
and science may be left unnoticed, for the reason that 
they are either given up, or deal too largely in fancy to 
merit serious consideration. There is one theory, how- 
ever, which is not wanting in able advocates, and is 
entitled to a hearing. A number of eminent natural- 
ists, with whom coincide numerous theologians, look on 
the Genesis narrative as an epitome of the history of 
creation, " days " being the symbolical equivalent, or 
representative, of the long eras which science discloses ; 
there being, however, a correspondence in the order of 
sequence, — a correspondence of a very striking charac- 
ter, and giving evidence of inspiration. It is not sup- 
posed that the facts of science were opened to the view 
of the writer of the first chapter of Genesis ; but he saw, 
possibly in a vision, or through some other method of 
supernatural teaching, the course of things in their due 
order. The length of time really consumed in the pro- 
cess, he, perhaps, may have been as ignorant of as were 
his readers. 

Plausible as this theory may appear to some, and sup- 
ported 1 hough it be by distinguished names in science, 
as well as in theology, it has to encounter grave diffi- 



476 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

culties. Not a few learned naturalists regard the al- 
leged correspondence in the order of events as unreal, 
or as effected by a forced interpretation of the narra- 
tive. For example, the earlier animal species did not 
wait to become extinct until the earlier species of plants 
had passed away, but both simultaneously perished; 
while, according to Gen. i. 10, 12, the vegetable king- 
dom was brought into being as a whole, and the divine 
approval was pronounced upon it ; and not until after 
the interval of a " day " were the first animals created. 
With these naturalists many judicious critics and exe- 
getes are agreed. The matching of the narrative to the 
geological history is thought to require a more flexi- 
ble and arbitrary understanding of words and phrases 
in the former than a sound method of hermeneutics will 
sanction. 1 Another circumstance which tends to give 
a precarious character to the hypothesis in question is 
the documentary composition of Genesis. It is gener- 
ally agreed that there are two distinct accounts of the 
creation, from somewhat different points of view, placed 
in juxtaposition. The hand of the compiler is plainly 
seen. It may be thought, however, that the first of 
these fragments owed its origin, in the first instance, to 
a vision, or to some other special extraordinary commu- 
nication from Heaven. Yet this theory would require 
to be established. The new light which has been ob- 
tained upon Oriental history and religions raises addi- 
tional doubt as to the tenableness of the hypothesis of 
which we are speaking. A mistake has often been 
made, especially by naturalists, in assuming that the 
first chapter of Genesis stands by itself, instead of being 
one of a series of narratives which extend over the ear- 
lier portion of the book, and must be examined and 

1 See Dillmann, p. 11. 



CONGRUITY OF SCIENCE WITH CHRISTIAN FAITH. 477 

judged as a whole. Now, we have ascertained that nar- 
ratives bearing strong marks of likeness to these were 
current among the other Semitic peoples with whom the 
Israelites were related, — among the Phoenicians, and 
among the Babylonians and Assyrians. Some of the 
Chaldsean legends or traditions appear to have formed 
one stock with the Genesis narratives, at the same time 
that these, in their present form, are distinguished by 
their freedom from polytheistic myths, and by the lofty 
theistic features which have been pointed out. How 
far back can the purer or the Genesis form of these 
narratives be traced ? Are they to be considered the 
original, most ancient form of traditionary belief, of 
which the other Semitic legends are a corruption? 
Positive evidence of an historical kind for such a view 
is wanting. There is one recent theory which appears 
void of probability. It is, that the narratives in the 
first nine chapters of Genesis were taken from the Baby- 
lonians by the Jews during the exile, and then, for the 
first time, introduced into their Scriptures. The sup- 
position that they would borrow a cosmogony, with the 
connected narrative, from a detested nation of idolaters, 
is in the highest degree unlikely. Dillmann has shown 
that the Genesis stories bear a closer resemblance to the 
Phoenician than to the Chaldsean legends, as far as these 
last are at present known by the cuneiform monuments. 
The conception of a first man in a garden, in fellowship 
with God, and falling into sin, is not met with in the 
Chaldsean stories, nor is it met with anywhere but in 
Genesis. 1 The idea of a tree of life is common in Semi- 
tic and Iranian legends. It is pre-exilian, being advert- 
ed to in the book of Proverbs. The story of the Flood 

1 Dillmann, Uber die Herkunft d. urgesekiuhtl. Sagen d. Hebriier 
(Berlin, 1882), p. 5. 



478 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

is not peculiar to Babylon. It is a wide-spread tra- 
dition among many nations. If, therefore, the narra- 
tives in Genesis are of Babylonian origin, it is by some 
indirect path, and this derivation is of a very remote 
date. Can it be reasonably thought that narratives in- 
volving so pure and exalted a theism were brought by 
Abraham from the land of his fathers into Palestine ? 
If not, then the expurgation and ennobling of these 
hoary traditions must have been the work of minds 
illuminated by the revelation to Moses. The divine or 
inspired element in the Genesis narrative of the crea- 
tion would thus be made to consist in the exclusion of 
elements at war with the religion of Israel, and in the 
casting of the ancient story into a shape in which it 
should become a vehicle of communicating, not scien- 
tific truth, but the great religious ideas which form the 
kernel of the Mosaic revelation. 1 It cannot be denied 
that this would be an important step taken in the deliv- 
erance of the Israelites from polytheistic superstition. 
It might be all that God saw it wise to effect on that 
stage of revelation. To substitute a scientific cosmog- 
ony for the inherited beliefs of the early Israelites would 
require magic rather than miracle. It would be either 
a supernatural teaching of what it belongs to the in- 
quisitive mind of man and the progress of science to 
discover, or it would be a kind of inspired riddle, the 
meaning of which could not be in the least divined — 
in this respect differing from prophecy — until science 
had rendered the ascertainment of its meaning super- 
fluous. 

No theory of evolution clashes with the fundamental 
ideas of the Bible as long as it is not denied that there 

1 Among the writers who defend this general view is Lenormant, 
The Beginnings of History, etc. 



CONGRUITY OF SCIENCE WITH CHRISTIAN FAITH. 479 

is a human species, and that man is distinguished from 
the lower animals by attributes which we know that 
he possesses. Whether the first of human kind were 
created outright, or, as the second narrative in Genesis 
represents it, were formed out of inorganic material, 
out of the dust of the ground, or were generated by 
inferior organized beings, through a metamorphosis of 
germs, or some other process, — these questions, as they 
are indifferent to theism, so they are indifferent as 
regards the substance of biblical teaching. It is only 
when, in the name of science, the attempt is made to 
smuggle in a materialistic philosophy, that the essential 
ideas of the Bible are contradicted. 

As regards the idea of creation, or the origin of 
things by the act of God's will, it is a point on which 
science is incompetent to pronounce. It belongs in the 
realm of philosophy and theology. Natural science 
can describe the forms of being that exist, can trace 
them back to antecedent forms, can continue the pro- 
cess until it arrives at a point beyond which investi- 
gation can go no farther ; then it must hand over the 
problem to philosophy. To disprove creation would 
require an insight into the nature of matter and of 
finite spirit such as no discreet man of science would 
pretend for a moment to have gained. This question, 
too, the question what constitutes the reality of things 
perceived, is one of the mysteries to the solution of 
which natural science lends a certain amount of aid, 
but which metaphysics and theology have at last to 
determine as far as the human faculties make it pos- 
sible. 

Christianity touches the domain of science in the 
Christian doctrine of physical death as the penalty of 
sin. Do not all living things die ? Do not the animals, 



480 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

those whose organization most resembles that of man, 
perish at the end of an allotted term? Are not the 
seeds of dissolution in our physical constitution ? Do 
not the Scriptures themselves dwell on man's natural 
frailty and mortality ? Does not an apostle — the same 
who asserts that death came in through sin — speak of 
the first man as of the earth, and mortal ? 

These questions are to be severally answered. The 
narrative in Genesis does not imply that man was im- 
mortal in virtue of his physical constitution. It teaches 
the opposite. Its doctrine is, that had he remained 
obedient to God, and in communion with him, an 
exemption from mortality would have been granted 
him. Not only would he have been spared the bodily 
pains which sin directly entails through physical law, 
and the remorse and mental anguish which are " the 
sting of death," but he would have made the transition 
to the higher form of life and of being through some 
other means than by the forcing apart of soul and body. 
The resurrection of Jesus, and the promised resurrec- 
tion of his followers, is the giving of a renewed organ- 
ism—" a spiritual body "—in the room of "flesh and 
blood." This involves the idea of a restoration of man 
to that which he forfeited through sin ; and it aids us 
in conceiving of a transformation, the method of which 
is altogether a mystery, through which unfallen man 
would have been developed into a higher mode of 
existence, reached by a process less violent and more 
natural than the crisis of death. The science which is 
adventurous enough to find Plato's Dialogues and Shak- 
speare's plays in the sunbeams will hardly assume to 
deny the possibility of such a transmutation. Chris- 
tianity does not permit sin, and the effects of sin on 
human nature, to be lightly estimated. A moral dis- 



CONGRUITY OF SCIENCE WITH CHRISTIAN FAITH. 481 

order, a disorder at the core of man's being, brings con- 
sequences more portentous than are dreamt of in the 
philosophy which will not recognize this terrible but 
patent fact. It is true that the lower animals die. 
But man is distinguished from them. He is more than 
a sample of the species. He is an individual. He 
includes, in his principle of life, rationality, conscience, 
affinity to God. If he were nothing but an animal, 
then it might be irrational to think of his escaping the 
fate of the brute. But, being thus exalted, there is no 
absurdity in conceiving of an evolution from the lower 
to the higher stage of existence, effected without the 
need of shuffling off the body, — an evolution, however, 
conditioned on his perseverance in moral fidelity and 
fellowship with God. When the Scriptures speak of 
human weakness, frailty, and mortality, it is to mankind 
in their present condition, with the consequences of sin 
upon them, that they refer. 

The Scriptures point forward to the perfecting of 
the kingdom of God, the consummation of this world's 
history. The physical universe is not an end in itself. 
It is subservient to moral and spiritual ends. It is not 
to remain forever in its present state. It is to partake 
in the redemption. The material system is to be trans- 
figured, ennobled, converted into an abode and instru- 
ment suited to the transfigured nature of the redeemed. 
" Without the loss of its substantial being, matter will 
exchange its darkness, hardness, weight, inertia, and 
impenetrability, for clearness, brilliancy, elasticity, and 
transparency." x The mystery that overhangs this 
change is no ground for disbelief. As far as physical 
science has a right to speak on the subject, it furnishes 

i Dormer, Christ!. Glaubenslcbre. ii. 973. 



482 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 

arguments for the possibility of such an evolution, and 
corroborates the obscure intimations of Scripture. 1 

The remark is not unfrequently heard, that, though 
there may be no positive dissonance between science 
and Scripture, yet the whole conception of the universe 
which science has brought to us is unlike that of the 
biblical writers, — so unlike, that the biblical doctrine 
of redemption is made incredible. The earth, instead 
of being the centre of the sidereal system, is only a 
minute member of it. It is, one has said, but " a pin- 
point " in the boundless creation. Consequently, man 
is reduced to insignificance. How can we imagine a 
mission of the Son of God, an incarnation of Deit} r , 
in behalf of a race inhabiting this little sphere ? The 
incredibility of the Christian doctrine is heightened, 
we are told, by the probability, given by analogy, that 
other rational beings without number, possibly of higher 
grade than man, exist in the multitudinous worlds which 
astronomy has unveiled. 

The whole point of this difficulty lies in the sup- 
posed insignificance of man. He who entertains such 
thoughts will do well to ponder certain eloquent say- 
ings of Pascal. What is the physical universe, with its 
worlds upon worlds, compared with the thought of it 
in man's mind ? Who is it that discovers the planets, 
weighs them, measures their paths, predicts their mo- 
tions? Shall bulk be the standard of worth? Shall 
greatness be judged by the space that is filled ? One 
should remember, also, the sublime observation of Kant 
on the starry heavens above us and the moral law within 
us, — one connecting us with a vast physical order, in 
which, to be sure, we occupy a small place, but the 

1 See Tait and Stewart, The Unseen Universe. 



CONGRUITY OF SCIENCE WITH CHRISTIAN FAITH. 483 

other binding us to a moral order of infinite moment, 
giving to our spiritual being a dignity which cannot 
be exaggerated. As to possible races of rational crea- 
tures in other worlds, who, if they exist, can affirm 
that the mission and work of Christ have no signifi- 
cance for them? But, not to lose ourselves in con- 
jecture, the objection is seen, on other grounds, to be 
without any good foundation. The existence of any 
number of rational creatures elsewhere does not di- 
minish in the least the worth of man ; it does not lessen 
his need of help from God ; it does not weaken the 
appeal which his forlorn condition makes to the heart 
of the heavenly Father; it does not lower the proba- 
bility of a divine interposition for his benefit. Shall 
the Samaritan turn away from one sufferer at the 
wayside, because myriads of other men exist, many of 
them, perhaps, in a worse condition than he? This 
method of reasoning and of feeling is quickly con- 
demned when it is met with in human relations. It 
would deaden the spirit of benevolence. It is not less 
fallacious, and not less misleading, when applied to the 
relations of God to mankind. 



INDEX. 



Abbot, E., 190, 194, 201, 223, 234. 

Abbot, E. A., 240. 

Acacius, 381. 

Agassiz, L., 453. 

Albert the Great, 447, 464. 

Anaxagoras, 447. 

Anselm, 40, 74. 

Ansgar, 287. 

Antilegomena, 432 seq., 435. 

Antinomies of Kant, 87. 

Apocalypse, authorship of the, 237, 
441. 

Apollinaris, Bishop of Hierapolis, 
247. 

Apollonius of Tyana, 286. 

Apostles, authority of the, 425 

Arabs, their science, 459 seq. 

Aristotle, 74, 447. 

Arnold, Matthew, 123, 299. 

Arnold, T., 287. 

Athanasius, 428. 

Athenagoras, 232. 

Atticus, Archbishop of Constanti- 
nople, 381. 

Augustine, his reports of miracles, 
293. 

Bacon, F., on prophecy, 321. 

Bacon, Roger, 447, 464 seq. 

Barnabas, the Epistle of, 433. 

Baronius, 466. 

Barth, 395. 

Baur, his theory of Christianity, 223 
seq.; his theory of John's Gospel, 
253; on Paul's conversion, 311. 

Becket, Thomas a, 289. 

Berkeley, 49. 

Bernard', St., 290. 

Beyschlag, 257. 

Bleek, 190, 316, 321, 325. 

Boniface, lis". 

Bowne, B. P., 26, 33, 35. 

Boyle, It,, 65. 

buckle, his school, 457. 

I'.u.ldlia, 24, 129. 



Buddhism, 129, 396 seq. 
Buffon, 66. 

Burke, Edmund, 291. 
Bumouf, 398. 
Butler, Bishop, 279. 

Calderwood, H., 39. 

Calvin, on the books of the New- 
Testament, 438. 

Canon, Muratorian, 431. 

Canon, Old-Latin, 430. 

Canon, of the Old Testament, 427. 

Canon, Syrian, 430. See Peshito. 

Celsus, 232. 

Charity, how promoted by Chris- 
tianity, 379 seq. 

Chastel, 381. 

Cheyne, 328. 

Christ. See Jesus. 

Chrysostom, 293, 382. 

Clairaut, 66. 

Clement of Alexandria, 183, 195, etc. 

Clement of Rome, 149, 184 ; his 
Epistle to the Corinthians, 433. 

Collins, 11. 

Comte, 78 seq. 

Confucius, 24, 128. 

Conservation of energy, 18. 

Constantino, 298. 

Copernicus, 65, 66. 

Cowper, 450. 

Creation, the idea of, 479. 

Credner, 191, 200. 

Cunningham, on the Epistle of Bar- 
nabas, 232. 

Dana, J. D., 62. 
Darmestetter, J., 128. 
Darwin, 46, 5.". seq., 452, etc. 
Descartes, 2, 40, 74. 
Dillmann, 403, 474. 
Dorner, 64, 238. 
Douglas, 281. 

Draper, J. W., his historical theory, 
458. 



486 



INDEX. 



Eckermann, 339. 

Edwards, J., 188. 

Enoch, the book of, 422. 

Epictetus, 104. 

Epiphanius, 199. 

Erskine, T., G7, 127. 

Euemerus, 22, 175. 

Evolution, 52 seq.; Spencer's doc- 
trine of, 8(5 seq.; in relation to 
Scripture, 478. 

Eusebius, 183, 199, 222, etc. 

Ewald, 131, 241, 316, 318, 319, 331, 
420, etc. 

Fairbairn, A. M., 89. 

Family, influence of Christianity 

on the, 372. 
Fenelon, 45. 
Fetich-worship, 20. 
Fichte, 75. 
Flint, R., 41, 68, 79. 
Francis, St., his biographies, 300; 

his alleged miracles, 302 ; his 

stigmata, 303. 
Froude, J. A., 187, 290. 

Galileo, 66, 448 seq., 466. 
Genesis, the narrative of the crea- 
tion in, 473, seq. 
Gibbon, 185, 298, 348. 
Gieseler, 186. 

Gnostics, and John's Gospel, 234. 
Goethe, 338. 

Gospels, the apocryphal, 206 seq. 
Gray, A., 57, 62. 
Gregory of Nyssa, 287. 
Grotius, 149. 
Guizot, 298. 

Hamilton, Sir William, 27 seq., 87, 

98. 
Harnack, 182, 205. 
Harvey, 65. 
Haug, 128. 
Hegel, 75 seq. 
Henslow, G., 60. 
Herbert, T. M., 17. 
Hermas, 232, 433, 435. 
Herschel, Sir J., 49. 
Hilgenfeld, 149, 182, 190, 226. 
Hippolytus, 195, 222. 
Hobbes, 9, 11. 
Holtzmann, 213. 
Homologoumena, 435. 
Hopper, 391. 
Humboldt, A. von, 470. 
Hume, 6, 8, 97, 110, 282, etc. 
Hutton, R. H., 245, 339. 
Huxley, T. H, 8, 55 seq., 62, 63; on 

Hume and miracles, 111 seq. 



Irenseus, 182, 184, 185, 186, 188, 432, 
etc. 

Jacobi, 32. 

James, the Epistle of, 441. 

Janet, 60, 66. 

Jesus, his life momentous, 122; his 
personal claims, 124 seq. ; compared 
with other religious founders, 128; 
insanity has been imputed to him, 
130; his sanity, 132; his sinless- 
ness, 134 seq. ; union of virtues in 
him, 137 ; free from self-accusa- 
tion, 137; his denunciation of the 
Pharisees, 141 ; tried by suffering, 
142; his divine mission proved by 
his own testimony and character, 
145 seq.; his injunctions not to 
report his miracles, his cautions 
against an over-esteem of them, 
153; connection of his teaching 
with miracles, 155 ; the proof of 
his resurrection, 166 seq. ; llenan's 
conception of, 177 seq.; his dis- 
courses, 247 seq.; his motive in 
the choice of the disciples, 267 ; 
his birth and childhood, 279; pre- 
dicted in the Old Testament, 321 
seq.; his own predictions, 334; his 
work as the Saviour, 346 seq.; 
his teaching respecting God, 354; 
his teaching respecting man, 355; 
his incarnation and atonement, 
360; his new ideal of man and of 
society, 369; his authority, 423. 

John the Baptist, 155 seq., 162. 

Josephus, on the canon of the Old 
Testament, 427. 

Julian, 298. 

Julian, the emperor, 367. 

Justin, 190 seq., 198, 214, 231, 429, etc. 

Kant, 15, 84, 87, 97 seq. ; on the ar- 
gument of design, 48 seq. 

Keil, 245. 

Keim, 123, 165, 169, 174, 225, 227, 230, 
241 ; on Paul's conversion, 311. 

Kempis, Thomas a, 347. 

Kepler, 65. 

Koran, character of the, 393. 

Kuenen, 326 seq. 

Lactantins, 195. 

Laplace, 66. 

Last Supper, the date of the, 244. 

Legsje, 391. 

Liddell, Dean, 452. 

Lightfoot, J. B., 150, 182, 185, 205, 

208, 209, 210, 211, 213, 229, etc. 
Lipsius, 199. 
Logos, in the Fourth Gospel, 238 seq. 



INDEX. 



487 



Lotze, 26, 35. 

Loyola, 286. 

Lucretius, 19, 51 seq. 

Luther, on the books of the New 



Testament, 



seq. 



Maine, Sir Henry, 23. 

Mangold, 190, 216, 225,231. 

Mansel, 25, 87, 99. 

Marcion, 214, 233. 

Marcus Aurelius, 104, 297. 

Martineau, J., 77. 

Maurice, 291. 

Maxwell, Clerk, 18. 

McCosh, J., 39, 40. 

Melito, 232. 

Meyer, 141, 150, 245. 

Miller, Hugh, 451. 

Mill, J. S., 3, 7, 10, 11, 63, 79, 100, 
277, etc. 

Miracles, a constituent of revela- 
tion, 105 seq. ; their relation to 
the uniformity of nature, 108 ; 
rest on historical proof, Hume's 
argument respecting, 109 seq., 
277; Huxley on, 111 seq.; not iso- 
lated events, 114; their relation 
to "the order of nature," 115; 
their relation to internal evi- 
dence, 116 ; Itothe on, 117 ; im- 
portance of, 118 seq. ; wrought by 
the apostles, as they thought, 
148 ; injunctions not to report, 
151 ; not to esteem too highly, 
153; inseparably connected with 
authentic teaching, 155 seq. ; not 
attributed to John the Baptist, 
161 ; nor to Jesus prior to his 
public ministry, 162; proved by 
the faith of Jesus in himself, and 
by the apostles in him, 162; links 
in the chain of events, 164; the 
resurrection of Jesus one of them, 
166 ; Kenan's theory respecting, 
177; not capable of demonstra- 
tive proof, 180; in the Gospels, no 
presumption against their genu- 
ineness, 181; value attached to 
them in the Fourth Gospel, 257; 
Bishop Butler on, 279; to attest 
revelation, 281 ; the ground and 
source of faith, 283; not the re- 
sult of fraud, 284; competence 
of the witnesses to, 287 ; none of 
them tentative, 288; dignity and 
beauty of, 21)0; alleged post-apos- 
tolic, 291: wrought by prophets, 
831. 

Miracles, ecclesiastical, not to at- 
test revelation, 282 ; frequently 
mere marvels, 282; for the fur- 



therance of an existing system, 
284 ; explainable by natural 
causes, 285 ; incompetence of 
witnesses to, 286 ; often tenta- 
tive and doubtful, 288; often gro- 
tesque, 289; possible occurrence 
of, 291; in the patristic era, 292 
reported by Augustine, 293 seq. 
in the lives of the saints, 299, 
Niebuhr's view of, 299; related of 
St. Francis, 300 seq. 

Mivart, 54, 62. 

Mohammed, 24. 

Mohammedanism, 367, 388, 393. 

Monotheism, Hebrew, its origin, 
402 seq. 

Mozley, 0. B., 62, 113, 115, 117, 134, 
281. 

Midler, Julius, 29 seq., 35, 42. 

Midler, Max, 392. 

Muratorian canon, 184, 231. 

Natural laws, 108 seq. 

Nature, biblical views of, 469 seq.; 

final transfiguring of, 481. 
Neander, 280, 298. 
Newman, J. H., 281, 287. 
Newton, 65. 
Nicholson, E. B., 202. 
Nitzsch, 35. 
Norton, A., 190, 207, 244. 

Oehler, 316, 322. 
Origen, 185, 196, 474, etc. 
Owen, R., 54, 62. 

Pantheism, in the religions of In- 
dia, 1. 

Papias, 184, 210 seq. 

Park, E. A., 111. 

Parker, T., 141. 

Pascal, 482. 

Paul the apostle, 139, 167; on seek- 
ing for God, 36; at Athens, 106. 

Paulus, 175. 

Peirce, B.,45, 65. 

Pentateuch, its origin, 419. 

Peshito, 184. 

Peter, Second Epistle of, 443. 

Pileiderer, 20. 

Philo, 474 ; in relation to the Fourth 
Gospel, 240. 

Philostratus, 286. 

Pollock, 75. 

Polycarp, 186. 

Polycratea, 246. 

Porter, N., 39, 64. 

Pothinufl, 186. 

Reid, T., 28, 97. 



488 



INDEX. 



Reformation, its effect on biblical 
criticism, 408. 

Kenan, 123, 131, 132, 141, 1G5, 177 
seq., 220. 

Kenouf, 392. 

Reuss, 277. 

Revelation, its relation to redemp- 
tion, 410 ; historical, 411 ; ante- 
rior to the Scriptures, 414, etc. 

Rhys Davids, 397. 

Kibadeneira, 286. 

Riehm, 31G. 

Robinson, E., 244. 

Ropes, C. J. H., 182. 

Rothe, 117. 

Sadler, 191. 

Sanday, W., 190, 191, 214, 232. 

Saturlinus, 234. 

Schaff, P., 217, 311. 

Scbelling, 75. 

Schenkel, 226. 

Schleiermacher, 33, 117, 168. 

Schmid, R., 53, 62. 

Semisch, 190. 

Seneca, 104. 

Silliman, B.. 451. 

Slavery, relation of Christianity to, 
384. 

Socialism, its relation to Chris- 
tianity, 383. 

Socrates, 130, 447. 

Spencer, Herbert, on free-will, 7, 
13; on the origin of religion, 21 
seq., 39, 85 seq., 101, etc. 

Spinoza, <S, 7, 9, 10, 39, 73 seq. 

State, influence of Christianity on 
the, 373. 

Stewart, D., 28. 

Strauss, 123, 157, 163, 176, 242. 

Stuart, Moses, 451. 

" Supernatural Religion," 200. 



Tatian, his Diatesseron, 204 seq., 

Taylor, Jeremy, 201. 

Taylor, W. M., 139. 

Tertullian, 183, 185, 197, 203, 214, 

260, etc. 
Theodicy, Christian doctrine of the, 

361. 
Tholuck, 244. 
Tillcmont, 182. 
Trendelenburg, 39, 41, 64. 
Tschirnhausern, 75. 
Tyndale, on the books of the New 

Testament, 438. 
Tyndall, 81. 

"War, effect of Christianity on, 383. 
Weiss, B., 131, 140, 141, 211, 218, 

280. 
Wellhausen, 402. 
Wesley, J , 15. 

Westcott, 201, 218, 220, 241, etc. 
Whewell, 401. 
Whitney, W. D., 392, 394. 
Wieseler, 244. 
Williams, Monier, 129. 

Ueberweg, 74. 
Ulrici, 26, 33, 35. 

Valentinus, 234. 
Variability, 56 seq. 
Venables, 227. 
Virchow, 62. 

Xavier, St. Francis, 286, 290. 

Zahn, 182, 205, 227. 
Zellcr, E.,222, 238, 440. 
Zoukler, 458. 
Zoroaster, 128. 



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